NEW SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION IN BOSTON:
A STUDY OF THE POLITICS AND THE PROCESS
BY
WILLIAM LEE ROBERTS
B,S,A,D, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE
(1969)
OF TECHNOLOGY
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF MASTER IN
CITY PLANNING
AT THE
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF
TECHNOLOGY
JANUARY
1972
SIGNATURE OF AUTHOR
DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING
CERTIFIED BY
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JANUARY
21, 1972
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ABSTRACT
New School Construction in Boston: A Study of
the Politics and the Process
William Lee Roberts
Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master in City Planning, January, 1972
t
The thesis document analyzes some of the factors which
enter into the process of new construction of public schools
and how these factors are influenced by community groups, public
agencies and individuals in crisis situations. In order to
provide data for the construction of an analytical model of
this process, seven case studies of specific school building
problems are presented. The first of these case studies concerns
a proposed vocational school in Portland, Maine and the remaining
six case studies concern various school projects in the City of
Boston.
The study begins with a brief preface which introduces
the author and describes his personal experience with muncipal
administration and planning as a planner employed by Portland,
Maine and Boston, Massachusetts. An introduction to the case
studies presents an analytical framework consisting of a recurrent
pattern of conflict, crisis and resolution which is used in
the presentation of each of the case studies. Definitions are
given for these three phases of the school planning and construction
process utilizing the model which is developed in the analysis
and conclusion of the thesis.
The seven case studies present illustrations of various
problems encountered in the process of planning for new public
schools. The first case presents a simplistic situation, followed
by five cases presenting examples of community interaction, internal
bureaucratic conflict,,community frustrations, bureaucratic response
to community needs, and problems of community leadership and
organization. The final case study presents a complex situation
which combines many of the problems discussed in the previous situations.
An analysis of the recurrent theme of conflict resolution
is presented through the use of a quasi-economic model based upon
minimization of cost and completion time. Several diagrams are
included to provide a graphic representation of the analytical model.
The conclusion discusses the possibility of the development of this
model to provide management strategies for future use in accelerating
the process and in increasing its responsiveness to the needs of
the various actors.
Several appendices are included which describe the history and
background, actors, and process in school construction in the City of
Boston. Relevant legislation and a supplementary bibliography are
also included.
Thesis Supervisor: Lisa Redfield Peattie
Title: Associate Professor of Anthropology
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
I.
Case Study A: The Portland Area Vocational Technical
High School: a simplistic situation
II.
Case Study B: The Georgetowne Elementary School:
community-bureaucracy interaction
III.
Case Study C: The Edward Everett School Annex:
internal bureaucratic conflict
IV.
77
Case Study D: The Copley Square High School:
community frustration and bureaucratic constraints
V.
Case Study E: The Washington Allston Elementary School: 94
responding to community desires
VI.
Case Study F: The Margaret Fuller Elementary School:
community leadership and organization
113
VII.
Case Study G: The Carter School Complex:
a complex situation of multiple crises
136
VIII.
Analysis
176
IX.
Conclusions
200
X.
Appendix A: The History and Background of New School
Construction in Boston
207
XI.
Appendix B: A Description of the Actors in the Boston
School Building Process
219
XII.
Appendix C:
The Process of New School Construction
in Boston
266
311
XIII.
Appendix D:
XIV.
Appendix E: Chapter 642 of the Acts of 1966
An Act Establishing the Public Facilities
Commission of the City of Boston
320
Supplementary Bibliography
335
XV.
Chapter 641 of the Acts of 1965
The Massachusetts Racial Balance Law
t
5
PREFACE
PREFACE
In the summer of 1968, while working for the Planning Department
of the City of Portland, Maine, I had my first experience with thet
process of planning for a public school system. Although my thesis
concerns itself primarily with the process of school planning in the
City of Boston, I believe that the Portland experience may help to
supplement the Boston data insofar as it allows certain contrasts
and similarities to be demonstrated.
Therefore, the first portion
of this document describes my experiences with Portland in 1968 in
the hope that the less politically sophisticated population and
administration in that small city may provide the reader with some
guideposts to use in examining the Boston experience.
Since June of 1969 I have been employed by the Public Facilities
Department of the City of Boston as a "community planner."
Along with
two other planners, I have been charged with the responsibility of
working with individuals, community groups, and governmental agencies
and bodies in producing completed school buildings in Boston.
Just as
the process itself, the position is nebulously defined and often the
work seems to have little structure or logic in its mandated responses
to complex and unexpected circumstances.
It is my intention to describe
some of these circumstances and the process in general by examining
several specific projects.
After three years of involvement with the planning of educational
services and facilities, it is still unclear in my mind that there is
any rational structure which can be said to be imposed upon the p ocess.
However, there are some recurrent themes and patterns which do become
apparent and in the third part of this document, I will attempt to
describe those commonalities and use them to establish at least a
partial framework which constrains the process.
Of primary interest is the recurrent theme of problem, conflict,
crisis and resolution.
It becomes apparent through examination of
the seven case studies presented herein that the primary goal of the
actors in the process is to either allow or prevent the process from
reaching some preestablished goal.
Those actors on the prevention
side attempt to provoke crisis while those on the side of allowing
the goal attempt to avoid crisis.
Utilizing this simplistic framework
it is possible to construct infinite variations of provocation or
prevention of crisis.
Traditionally, an effective and efficient institutional structure
is expected to function smoothly, avoiding conflict, and, when conflict
occurs, resolving it below the crisis stage.
It is possible that any
attempt to reconcile this theory with maximum citizen participation in
the governmental process produces a significant paradox.
Citizen
participation appears to thrive on crisis and therefore the bureaucracy
finds itself charged with both avoiding and provoking crisis situations.
"Controlling crisis" may be the best description of the process but
that itself raises certain ethical questions of forcing artificialt
crises on the lives of individuals.
These questions are among those
addressed in the conclusions of this thesis and should be kept in
mind by the reader as each case study is presented.
In addition, I have attached several appendices to describe the
legal and bureaucratic structure within which the Boston school
building process occurs.
These appendices should be of assistance to
the reader in understanding the formal responsibilities of the various
political actors and contrasting those responsibilities with the actual
functions as described in the case studies.
The two major pieces of
legislation affecting the Boston school building process are Chapter 641
of the Acts of 1965, known as the Massachusetts Racial Balance Act, and
Chapter 642 of the Acts of 1966 establishing the Public Facilities
Commission.
I have included both of these acts- in their entirety in
the appendices.
9
INTRODUCTI Oi
INTRODUCTION
The objective of this thesis is to construct a model which
behaves in a manner similar to the conflict situations which occuo
in the school building process and to use that model to devise certain
rational strategies which will allow a degree of management to be
imposed on the process by the controlling actors and agencies.
To
accomplish this end, seven specific case studies have been examined
to obtain empirical data as to the behavior of the process and to
allow a set of situations against which the model can be tested.
The case studies themselves are presented as three part
situations consisting of conflict, crisis and resolution.
These
three elements are the result of a situation model which sees the
school building processes as fundamentally linear with a constant
objective of producing a completed and operating school.
Because
of the linear nature of the process, at any given point the outcome
falls within a defined set of possibilities which becomes more specific
as the process nears completion.
In addition, the process is constantly responding to demands
which reflect the acceptable outcome as perceived by each of the actors
and agencies involved.
As long as the acceptable outcome of each actor
lies within the set of outcomes described by the linear process, the
process continues without interruption.
Different actors may have
different acceptable outcomes within the possible outcome set.
This
disparity may be termed "conflict."
When the outcome set becomes more restricted, either due to the
normal progress of the linear process or to some external action, certain
outcomes are excluded from the outcome set and the actors desiring these
excluded outcomes now find themsleves engaged in a "crisis" situation.
By either modifying the excluded outcome to fall within the outcome
set or modifying the outcome set to include the excluded outcome, the
crisis ends and this process of modification may be called "resolution."
Basically, conflict situations arise between two actors in the
process although it is possible to have situations wherein individual
accepted outcomes are shared by several actors causing conflicts
between groups or groups and individual actors.
How these conflicts
reach crisis stage and how they are resolved are the core questions to
be answered by the crisis model.
By developing this sort of general
typology for crisis s-ituations it is hoped that it will be possible to
recognize incipient crises and to maintain them at the conflict level
or below.
Naturally, many crises situations occur wherein the acceptable
outcome of a specific actor is exluded from the outcome set and the
actor spontaneously resolves to change his accepted outcome without
any attempt to modify the outcome set.
For the purposes of this,
study these situations are both invisible and unimportant.
However,
application of the general model would indicate that these situations
have almost infinite opportunity to exist and possibly it is this
mode of resolution which keeps crises sporadic and discrete.
An examination of the case studies will make this structure more
obvious to the reader.
In the final analysis and conclusion the
model performs fairly well and has already been a help to the author
in ordering the apparent random chaos of the various interactions
in the school building process.
t
CASE STUDY A
THE PORTLAND AREA
VOCATIONAL TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL
CASE STUDY A: PORTLAND AREA VOCATIONAL TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL
This specific case study is provided in order to present a
simplistic model which identifies issues and processes which are
common to school building programs in general.
The Portland
t
case concerns itself with a major state subsidized vocational high
school to be built in a small city by a school administration and
municipal administration naive about the broad spectrum implications
of their actions in the building of such a facility. This case
dates from about 1967, with the major decisions being made in
1968 and the school building under construction but not complete
as of this writing at the end of 1971.
GENERAL BACKGROUND.
The City of Portland, Maine has a population
of approximately 65,000 persons in a metropolitan area of 200,000.
Portland is located in the southern part of Maine, approximately
100 miles north of Boston, Massachusetts.
Portland is governed by
a nine member city council whose members are elected at large for
three year terms, three members being elected each year. The
Council employs a city manager who serves at the council's pleasure.
The School Board is composed of six members, also elected at large,
and employing a professional Superintendent of Schools who serves
at the pleasure of the Board.
15
As specified in the city charter, municipal government in
Portland is non-partisan, the party affiliations of the candidates
not being allowed to appear on the ballots or in campaign literature.
Municipal elections generally produce a small response from the t
electorate, with bond issues and referendum questions generally being
a bigger attraction to the voters than the selection of municipal
officials.
Geographically, the City of Portland consists of a downtown
area, two older residential neighborhoods, a blighted residentialindustrial neighborhood, and the waterfront area situated on a
peninsula bounded by Portland Harbor, Casco Bay and Back Cove.
During the period shortly preceding and following the turn of the
century, the city annexed several of the small towns to the north
and north west off of the peninsula.
The town of South Portland
(then Libbyville, Cash Corner, Knightsville, etc.) remained unannexed, incorporating as the City of South Portland.
Attraction of
industry and- commerce, both real and imagined, away from Portland and
to South Portland is one of the prime issues in the minds of Portland
officials and is given considerable weight in almost all decisions
made by the Portland Municipal government.
Portland, like the entire state of Maine, is economically
/16
depressed.
The metropolitan area is growing with the predominant
growth occurring in the white-collar suburbs in response to
expansion in the service industries, distribution, banking and
insurance.
The city itself has been experiencing a decline in
population since about 1950.
In response to the economic problems of the state, the State
Legislature passed a bill in the early 1960s to create a number of
vocational-technical high schools throughout the state.
These
schools would be located in specific municipal school districts
with the state assuming 40% of the construction cost and adjacent
municipalities reimbursing the district operating the school for
staff and facilities costs on a per pupil capita formula.
In 1967, the School Department of the City of Portland made
application to the State Department of Education for the construction
of one of these schools to serve the City of Portland and the
adjacent towns of South Portland, Scarborough, Gorham, Westbrook,
Falmouth, Yarmouth, Gray, Cumberland, Windham and Freeport.
It is
unclear how these towns were selected as the school systems in the
towns reported that they were not contacted until much later in the
process.
The selection appears to have been somewhat random and
possibly was made only for the sake of informal solicitation of
comment from the State.
Further investigation of the selection
indicated various problems, often quite obvious, which were not
considered.
For example, the Town of Freeport, although only a
few miles from Portland as measured by a straight line, is 50%
closer to a proposed vocational high school in Brunswick, Maine
due to the windings of the irregular coastline.
Based upon what one Portland school administrator terms a
"not unfavorable reaction" by the State Department of Education,
the Portland School Department Staff, consisting primarily of
teachers who had come up through the system, prepared a list of
courses which .they felt should be included in the proposed school.
The generation of this list was totally internal and no significant
research was done into the local labor market nor into the aspirations
of students or the parents of students in the school population.
Based upon this list, and without further consultation with the State,
the School Department established approximate areas required to conduct
each program and a total site area of approximately six acres. This
information was presented in an eight (8)page application to the
State in early 1967, which was the only written document produced by
the School Department to justify their program and site requirements.
The State took no action on this document, neither accepting nor
rejecting it.
Based upon this tenuous beginning, the School Department undertook
a brief and informal search for a site. This search took the form of
an internal discussion among the various administrators outlining their
needs, both operational and psychological.
In Portland, as in most
other urban school systems, much of the problem in arriving at any
course of action is reconciling the perceived needs of teachers,
principals- and administrators in maintaining their constituencies
Compromises must be
and jurisdictions within the school bureaucracy.
made and to do'this various incentives of power and prestige must be
used by the Superintendent to arrive at a concensus among his staff.
In Portland, the acting Superintendent realized that his primary
difficulty would be convincing the Director of Vocational Education
to cooperate in producing this new facility. The incentive which
the Director of Vocational Education required was an increased
"empire" to offer each of his staff and an increase in prestige for
himself before his rapidly approaching retirement.
The result was
the selection by the School Department of a site which was large and
highly visible to the downtown area (although not in downtown) and
apparently easy to acquire under urban renewal plans already accepted
by the City Council.
Under Title I of the Urban Renewal Act, the Portland City Council
had undertaken two small renewal clearance projects, "Downtown I" and
"Baby Bayside."
Both were intended to be first phase prototypes for
major projects, the former in the central business district and
therefore unsuitable for a major non-taxable school development, and the
latter in the Bayside industrial-residential area adjacent to the central
business district.
Neither project had been disposed of by the Renewal
Authority with the exception of a portion of the Bayside site which had
been developed as low-rise public housing in the early sixties. The
clearance and relocation costs on both projects had been large and it
was common knowledge that the City Council would look favorably on
any scheme which would help make these sites attractive to taxable
development.
With this in mind, the School Department immediately
settled on the large Bayside area as the ultimate site for the proposed
vocational school.
Although it is impossible to establish any substantive proof of
a connection between the actions of the School Department and the
City Council, it is a fact that the elected leadership of the City
of Portland, both on the School Board and the Council, tends to be
drawn from the same social circles, business men's clubs, neighborhood
associations and industry affiliations.
Therefore, it is not unreasonable
to assume more than coincidence in the selection of a preferred site by
the School Department which coincided not with the already acquired
land, but the bulk of the residential neighborhood which was to be
included in the second phase of the Bayside Renewal project had the
first phase been disposed of to a suitable developer. Moreover,
accepting the School Department proposal as a convenient method of
achieving previously accepted goals, the City Council had a few
misgivings about accepting the Bayside site and, in an official vote
in July 1968, acted to select eight blocks of the Bayside neighborhood
as the school site. Again, this action was at the recommendation of
the School Department and no contact had been made with the State
Department of Education to determine the acceptability of the site
for a school for which the State was providing 40% subsidy.
It is important to examine some of the general relationships
which govern the actions of the City Council and School Board in order
to understand the motivation for this action.
Public leadership often
tends to act in accord with role models provided by the successful
private business community. This is not to say that business runs
the community, but that the officials in communities such as Portland
attempt to act as if they were business leaders as they perceive
business leaders act.
In his presentation of this site to the
Portland City Council, the acting Superintendent of Schools argued
that the construction of a new vocational school on this site would
remove some of the blight which was discouraging industry from locating
on the already acquired and cleared land in the "Baby Bayside" renewal
The dominant theme in the council discussion was that the
project.
school would provide an opportunity for completing the larger Bayside
Renewal Project and that the Phase I portion had proven unmarketable
only because it was not large enough to show good faith on the part
of the Council to prospective developers.
Up to this point the City Planning Board had been uninvolved in
planning for this major facility.
Such non-involvement on the part
of small city local planning agencies is not uncommon.
For the most
part these agencies are maintained by the municipalities solely for
the purpose of administering the local zoning ordinances and fulfilling
the requirement of preparing a "workable program for community
development" in order to keep the municipality eligible for federal
funds.
Most such workable programs are lengthy documents which are
carefully prepared by the planning agencies only to be sent to
Washington and forgotten.
In accordance with law, the City Planning Board was required
to review the sites of all proposed municipal facilities and therefore,
as a result of the School Department presentation to the Council, the
City Manager instructed the City Planning Board to fulfill its duty and
present a report at the next Council meeting, two weeks following
the first presentation.
t
If past experience had held true, the Planning Board would have
prepared a brief report giving projected acquisition costs, existing
zoning, relocation problems, tax returns from the existing uses on
the site, and a neutral recommendation deferring to the wisdom of
the Council.
At this point several independent factors came into
play, interrupting the normal bureaucratic process and making it
of particular value as a case study.
First, several months earlier, the Director of the planning
agency died suddenly of a heart attack and the assistant director
was left in charge of the staff operation pending the appointment
of a new director.
Normally, the Director acts as a buffer between
the Planning Board and the Council through the City Manager's office.
In this instance, the acting director did not realize the significance
of the facts which his staff was uncovering until it was too late to
keep these from being incorporated into the report and presented
to the Planning Board.
Second, the Chairman of the Planning Board had been hospitalized
and had just returned to his position on the Board.
While in the
hospital he was quite displeased to see his Board being ignored by
the City Council in several minor zoning matters and felt that as a
matter of good practice he would not allow the Council to easily
override the Board recommendation on the next issue.
He later admitted
that he had no idea that the matter in question, the Vocational School,
would present such a controversial tangle of conflicting interests.
Third, the matter had been assigned to the staff in mid-summer
when five of the fifteen members of the staff were college students
employed as "interns" by the department.
Normally, the regular staff
would have produced the cursory report described above, but the interns
had been plagued by very minor tasks for the preceding weeks and felt
that this matter deserved a serious job with considerable research.
Fourth, and possibly most significant, was the fact that the Office
of Economic Opportunity had established a neighborhood office in the
Bayside area three months earlier and that for the first time, Portland
was experiencing some activism on the part of its low-income residents.
In May, the local OEO staff had organized a mothers' march, complete
with baby carriages, to City Hall to demand better street lighting
because of a rash of street crimes in the Bayside neighborhood.
Normally, the City Council would have been affronted and would
have ignored such tactics.
However, the Public Works Commissioner
had already recognized the lighting problem in his capital budget
the preceding year and a contract had been let.
A week following
the march, the street lights began to go up, and although the march
had nothing to do with the installation, the neighborhood residents
perceived it as a victory and testament to the efficacy of neighborhood action.
It should be noted at this point that there was considerable
animosity between the Bayside citizens and the City Council.
In its
action several.years earlier of targeting Bayside as a prospective
urban renewal area, it had in effect cut off the residents from any
chance of obtaining loans for property improvement or from receiving
their fair share of municipal repairs to streets, playgrounds and
other public property in the annual budget. The neighborhood residents
interpreted this as a method of the Council to cause blight and decrease
property values and to reduce municipal expense in eminent domain
takings.
The combined animosity and frustrations of the neighborhood
and the Planning Board resulted in a staff report which identified
several problems and options unexplored by the school department
and which strongly questioned the advisability of using this major
school facility as a tool to allow the City Council to pursue its
already ill-fated urban renewal scheme. Among the items discussed
in the report were relocation costs and resultant time delays,
availability of more suitable sites in middle class areas of the
city, potential of the Bayside area for uses producing tax revenue
for the city, and the inability of the school department to justify
the specific site requirements.
The staff report was accepted by
the Planning Board and transmitted to the Council.
It is the practice of the Portland City Council to meet in
executive session in the afternoon prior to its biweekly evening
Al
public meeting. At this executive session, the councilors were
presented with their agenda for the evening and any back-up material
which they may have had to consider. At four o'clock on an afternoon
in July 1968, the nine members of the Portland City Council were handed
the Planning Board report on the Bayside site of the Area Vocational
Technical High School.
Most councilors glanced at the report and
put it aside to read during dinner. The City Manager went over the
items on the agenda one at a time, giving the councilors a brief
description of what to expect. Having only scanned the Planning
Board report because it had not come from the city printer's
office until a few minutes before the start of the executive
session, the City Manager made only brief comments upon the report,
reminding the councilors that it was merely the document which they
had requested the Board to prepare at the previous council meeting.
At five-thirty, the executive session adjourned and the councilors
left City Hall to go home or to have dinner at various restaurants
in Downtown Portland.
Shortly before seven o'clock, the councilors began arriving
and taking their seats in the Council Chamber.
A quick inspection
of the public gallery indicated the usual number of spectators and
persons with business before the Council.
Several of the councilors
recognized the OEO director seated in the gallery and made mention
of it to the manager. With the OEO director were several neighborhood
residents.
In a later conversation, the reporter from the Portland Press
Herald told me that he immediately noticed that the councilors
were obviously upset about something.
He noted that they were talking
among themselves in hushed tones and the usual spirit of conviviality
was almost completely subdued.
He used the public telephone in the
corridor to telephone his wife and inform her that he was probably
going to be quite late. As with most veteran City Hall reporters,
he had a good feel for when something was amiss.
As it turned oqt,
he was quite correct.
CONFLICT. At seven o'clock sharp the Council was called to order.
The City Manager read the first item on the agenda.
It was briefly
debated and voted upon. The next several items were treated similarly.
Following the reading of each item, citizens are granted three
minutes each to make any comments which they may have to the Council.
This hearing is not statutory but is a custom agreed to by the Council.
Usually, one or two citizens will speak on each item.
Appeals for zone
changes or variances and applications for liquor licenses tend to draw
most citizen participation as they affect the land-use patterns in the
neighborhoods.
Therefore, it is not surprising that a council action
which not only changes land-use but displaces 115 families should
evoke major response.
The item to accept the report of the Planning Board concerning
the proposed Vocational Technical High School was read and quickly
voted upon.
Only persons who have attended many council meetings
are able to follow the action. This vote, being primarily administrative and not really debatable was quickly passed with a mumble
from the clerk, an inaudible nod of heads and a quick bang of the
t
council chairman's gavel.
Several of the citizens who had come to
the meeting to speak interpreted this action as their having been
deprived of their right to be heard through some nefarious parliamentary
maneuver. At this point a few of the Bayside residents left the gallery
feeling frustrated and defeated.
Others, who were more vociferous,
let out with boos and catcalls.
After a brief consultation with the Council Chairman, the
City Manager explained the action just taken "for the benefit of
those in the gallery."
This conciliatory action calmed the spectators
and the meeting proceeded.
Next the clerk read the agenda item to accept the site proposed by
the School Department at the previous Council Meeting.
At the request
of one of the Councilors, a practicing physician and non-professional
politician who had run for council on a "good government" platform,
the Chairman of the Planning Board presented the Board's report and
read excerpts of it to the Council and to the spectators.
Several
questions were asked by various councilors, few addressing
the contents
of the report and most questioning the credibility of the Planning
Board in view of various past situations.
At his own request, the acting Superintendent of Schools rebutted
the Planning Board report. His primary argument was that the City of
Portland had to make application to the State Department of Education
rapidly as there was stiff competition for available funds under the
40% subsidy.
He assured the Council that everything was all right
and that the most important thing was that they take immediate action.
This strategy on the part of the acting Superintendent cost him two
votes from councilors who later admitted in a cloak room conversation
that they never made decisions under pressure and were offended by the
attempt by the Superintendent to rush them into a decision.
Several area residents then addressed the Council.
The general
subject of their testimony was that previous eminent domain takings
by the City for a road improvement project at the edge of the neighborhood had been unjust. The citizens argued that the City had forced
low appraisals and had blighted the area through partial early takings
to decrease values.
Only the OEO director made any mention of the
viability of Bayside as a residential neighborhood or the desire of
residents to remain.
The Council then debated the issue for an extended period with
the councilors opinions apparently either preconceived or
forming
along traditional liberal-conservative lines. The Council chairman,
who had been voted that post by his colleagues because of his apparent
neutrality, was apparently weighing the implications of his voting
with either side in view of other political considerations.
The topics
discussed by the councilors were not always directly applicable to the
issue under debate, with several councilors taking obvious delight in
insulting their colleagues' past performances.
Showmanship is a prime consideration in the styles of several
councilors.
One councilor, who was elected mostly through his
comical and dramatic actions as a spectator present at each and every
council meeting broadcast on the local radio station, made a considerable
effort at his favorite ploy of placing his head on his desk and feigning
sleep, including guttural snoring sounds, throughout much of the hearing
and debate.
This council, having exhausted the possibilities for further
insults and antics, accepted a motion to take a vote.
The councilors
settled down to reaching a decision which the majority had already
accepted two weeks earlier.
The vote was five to three with one
abstention.
Chaos broke out in the gallery and the meeting was recessed tto
allow calm to be restored. Usually a recess, in and of itself, will
be adequate to allow both councilors and spectators to recover from
any fits of temper or frayed nerves which a debate and vote may produce.
In this instance, it was not the recess but the efforts of the OEO
director which restored order to the chamber.
Several of the neighbor-
hood residents were determined to remain to resume debate after the
recess.
Only through the urging of the OEO director and his reassurances
that a motion for reconsideration at the next meeting was the only course
of action, did the residents leave the chamber or quietly remain for
the remainder of the meeting.
Even though the remaining items on the agenda were dispensed with
at a maximum speed, the'Council did not adjourn until after 1 a.m.
CRISIS.
If past experience in Portland politics had held true,
this Council meeting would have signaled the end of the issue, the
loosing actors would have noncedo4and-all would have prepared for
future challegis on other issues.
Instead, the next day, when two
32
staff members of the Planning Board called upon the OEO director to
express their disappointment in the turn of events, he did not
commiserate but asked their help in planning a course of action to
reverse the Council's decision.
I
In the ensuing discussion, it was decided that the planning staff
members would help the OEO director in preparing an advocate report
proving the Council with alternatives to the Bayside site. The
question of municipal employees participating in an advocacy action
against the municipal government was raised but had to be discarded as
there was no other resource in a small city to which a neighborhood
organization in the circumstance could turn.
In the following two weeks, the OEO director, his staff, and the
two Planning Board staff members, including the author, prepared a
brief report outlining two or more options available to the council in
finding a site for this school.
These options were either equal to or
better than the Bayside site in view of cost, ease of acquisition,
number of families and businesses relocated, future development potential
to the City, and other common planning criteria. The report was informally
presented to three of the councilors for their use. As only a councilor
voting with the majority can move for reconsideration, the report was
33
presented to the one councilor who appeared to be still flexible
although on record as in favor of the Bayside site.
After a brief
discussion he agreed to move for reconsideration at the next council
meeting.
At this point in the process the crisis was reached.
The Council
could either vote for reconsideration and thus begin a foreseeable
set of events through which compromise could be achieved or it could
refuse to change its position thus forcing the neighborhood into a
position of concession or minor rear-guard actions.
It was clear from
the attitude of the OEO director that he was organizing his community
for a full scale action.
Concession was not an alternative in his mind.
He was also aware that a series of minor confrontations would cause the
Council more embarassment, especially if it could be shown that their
actions were based upon inadequate research and planning.
Contacts by
his advocates with the State Department of Education indicated that the
school was totally unapprovable in the present form devised by the
School Department.
Contact with the councilors and distribution of the report
eliminated the surprise and confusion which were present at the preceding
council meeting.
Discussion in council executive session showed the
essence of the problem to be one of saving face while preventing any
action for reconsideration from appearing as willingness on the part
of the council to back down in the face of pressure.
Inquiries by one
councilor to the State Department of Education had confirmed the Planning
Board's contention that there was no need for undue haste in applying for
state subsidy as Portland, being the center of the largest metropolitan
area in the state, had already been targeted as the location of one
vocational facility provided that the Portland School Department would do
a reasonable amount of work to make the project possible.
Several
councilors felt betrayed by the acting Superintendent and saw him as
the logical scapegoat for their action.
Normally, the Superintendent of Schools, being the hand-picked
administrator of the School Board, would be politically unchallengeable
by the City Council unless the Council were willing to enter into a
direct confrontation with the only other major elective body in municipal
government.
Fortunately, the Superintendent had recently retired and the
man presently in the office was only acting superintendent temporarily
promoted from a lesser position to fill the gap.
The School Board did
not have any direct stake in his actions or competence.
At the evening's public Council Meeting, the motion for reconsideration
was made and passed with the acting superintendent being admonished by
several council members for misrepresenting the facts.
The matter
was remanded to the Planning Board to produce the comprehensive report
which it recommended in its earlier document.
The Council did not
use the proposed alternatives put forth in the advocate report aq
alternatives for site selection, but only as a justification for
reconsideration and restudy.
The reconsideration motion was worded in
such a manner that it did not abandon the Bayside site as a favorable
possibility but merely requested more data from the Planning Board.
THE RESOLUTION.
During the next three weeks the planning staff
researched and assembled a document of over two-hundred and fifty pages
considering implications of educational program, shifting demographics,
site acquisition and development costs and many other factors.
The
document analyzed eight possible sites both in the Bayside area and in
other parts of the City of Portland.
Intensive contact was made with
the State Department of Education, consulting engineers, educators in
and out of Portland, real estate and financial experts and Portland area
residents.
To produce such a major study in such a short period of time,
the planning staff worked overtime, nights and weekends and traveled
thousands of miles around New England gathering data on the experiences
of other cities and towns.
This heroic effort on the part of the planning staff was of
considerable use in assembling ultimate plans for the school but
was not entirely necessary to the resolution of the crisis.
When the
document was presented to the Council at its next meeting, it was
accepted and the reconsideration was allowed to stand.
By removing the
immediate pressure on the Bayside residents and agreeing to a major
restudy, the Council had, in effect, diffused the neighborhood organization's power by removing its impetus and counteracting its substantive
issues.
This was adequate to place the site selection problem into a
state of limbo until a more effective course of action could be
developed by the Council.
Almost as a postscript, the Council acted several months later
to employ a private consultant to verify the findings of the Planning
Board.
The consultant's report was essentially in accord and proposed
an alternative site consisting of an older industrial complex recently
vacated by a bakery. The buildings were obsolete and easy to acquire.
The Council accepted the proposal and demolition and clearance began in
1971 as of this writing.
The Bayside neighborhood remains.
The spectre of renewal
clearance has been removed in part by this confrontation and in part
through the efforts of the Model Cities Program in Portland.
Some
rehabitation of existing residential properties has occurred and the
municipal Capital Improvements Program is constructing new streets,
sewers and utilities in the area.
ANALYSIS.
The conflict of goals between the Portland School
Department and the OEO Bayside Neighborhood Center forms the core of
this case study.
Had the School Department foreseen the potential
problems of family relocation in the destruction of a low-income
neighborhood or had the OEO Center not existed to provide an organizational core for the neighborhood, the direct confrontation could have
been avoided or at least reduced to a bureaucratic skirmish between the
School Department and the Planning Board.
The School Department, through
careless examination of the alternatives, placed itself in a vulnerable
position where confrontation could be provoked.
The OEO Center, advocating
for its constituency, exploited the situation in such a manner to raise
the conflict to a cris's state.
On reexamination of the internal bureaucratic goals of the School
Department in view of the ultimate location of the school, it is clear
that the goals of power and prestige were achievable without conflict
outside of the School Department bureaucracy.
The bakery site or other
similar site was available from the beginning had the School Department
only made the effort to search out the alternative.
The acting
Superintendent's strategy to give the Council the opportunity to
complete an ill-fated renewal plan while obtaining 40% State Aid
was only partially complete, not having taken into account the Bayside
community.
It is significant to note that the prime strategy of the
School Department was to create its own crisis situation, the need for
immediate application for State funds.
Had this crisis been accepted
by the Portland City Council, it is doubtful that the neighborhood
would have been able to alter the outcome.
The crisis provoked by the
neighborhood, however, was much more significant to the Council and
hence overshadowed the School Department effort.
In view of its
functional constraints, it appears to be impossible for any group
decision making body, such as the Council, to act on more than one
crisis at a time.
The implications of this will be discussed further
in the conclusions of this thesis.
Another significant issue which can be identified in this
specific case is the use of a leadership-constituency coaltion in the
OEO Neighborhood Center to provide an instrument for influencing the
actions of the City Council.
The three distinct elements of leadership,
39
issue, and constituency necessary for grass-roots action will be
discussed further in the Carter School case study.
Suffice it to
say that as necessary as the OEO director was to this process, he
could not have nucleated his constituency without the issue of
neighborhood clearance nor could his constituency have applied
pressure on the Council without specific leadership from his agency
or some other source.
t
40
t
CASE STUDY B
THE GEORGETOWNE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
CASE STUDY B:
THE GEORGETOWNE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
As in the preceeding case study, this second case study
deals with community interaction and influence in the school
planning process.
However, in this instance the issue is educ-
ational philosophy and not site selection and the community interaction is formalized rather than ad hoc.
This case is presented as
an illustration of structured interaction between the bureaucracy
and the community, the techniques used by both groups and the factors
which prevent both groups from presenting a unified position which
can be designated "community" or "bureaucracy".
The Georgetowne Elementary School case study is concerned with
the events and strategies used by a municipality to convince a
community of the merits of "open-plan" school buildings.
In the
Georgetowne case, the community was not ignorant of the open-plan
concept, but knew only of it through rumors of an unsuccessful
open-plan school in an adjoining neighborhood.*
GENERAL BACKGROUND.
Georgetowne is a particular neighborhood
of the West Roxbury district of the City of Boston.
Of all of the
diverse sections of Boston, West Roxbury has the highest per capita
*A description of the open-plan school concept is contained in
Appendix C in the discussion of the Educational Program.
income and can be described as "suburban" in character, it having
been one of the last towns annexed to Boston in the 1890's.
Being a
stronghold of the white middle class within the city limits, West
Roxbury traditionally has been considered a key district to all aspiring politicians.
Moreover, as Boston elects it nine-member council,
as well as its mayor and school committee, at-large, it is imperative
that any candidate wishing to achieve or retain office perform well
in the district.
This fact, combined with the high level of education
and political awareness of the residents of West Roxbury, make any
action of the municipal government subject to sharp scrutiny by
elected officials wishing to remain visible and positively regarded
in the district. The residents are aware of this and do not hesitate
to exploit their postion.
Historically, West Roxbury has had nore than its share of residents on municipal payrolls.
Many policemen, firemen, teachers,
clerical workers and administrators live in the district. Moreover,
there has been no lack of native sons aspiring to and achieving elective office in the city government.
Approximately 50 per cent of the
households in West Roxbury have some member of the immediate family
on a city, county, state, federal or other government payroll.
Such
jobs as teacher, policeman, fireman, civil service clerk and others
account for this hagh rate of government employment.
With such a
personal stake in the running of the public sector, voter turn-out in
the district is consistently high.
In 1962, a study of the Boston Public Schools was done by Dr.
Cyril Sargent and a group of educators from Harvard University.
The
now famous "Sargent Report" documented what was effectively common
knowledge:
Boston's schools were old and decaying and there wa; no
comprehensice plan to rebuild them. The majority of Boston school
buildings had been built before 1900, often to absorb the residential
population of recently annexed suburbs such as West Roxbury.
A
few more schools were built just prior to World War I and another
handful in the late 1930's.
World War II halted new school construct-
ion and it was not until the early 1950's that Boston built a few
more elementary schools. Therefore, by the mid 1960's of the over 190
school buildings in Boston, at least 90 per cent were over fifty years
old.
As a result of the Sargent Report and another special report on
school construction prepared for Mayor John Collins in 1966, the
Public Facilities Commission was created and endowed with special
powers and charged with building new schools rapidly, efficiently
and in numbers unseen in Boston for over 70 years.
Further information
of the structure, powers, responsibilities and operations of this
Commission are contained in the Appendix of this document.
One of the first new schools to be built following the scathing
44
Sargent Report was located in West Roxbury. This school, known
as the Hastings Street School, was a small elementary school of
about 300 pupils.
It was unusual only insofar as it was the first
new school to be completed by the Public Facilities Commission and
that its second floor classrooms consisted of an open area for six
classes surrounding a central learning area.
This open plan scheme
had been proposed by the Harvard study and was being tried on a small
scale after having surmounted many bureaucratic hurdles in the
conservative Boston School Department.
Unfortunately, design compromises made to appease the elements
in the bureaucracy opposed to the open plan concept, inexperience on
the part of the newly formed Public Facilities Department in open
area schools, and the employment of an architect insensitive to the
problems of open space planning produced a school which was far from
perfect.
However, design alone was not the nemesis of the Hastings
Street project; problems of design were multiplied many times by a
principal and teaching staff unprepared for open plan teaching and
antagonistic to the open plan concept.
And so West Roxbury received
the first of the Boston open plan schools and the worst of the open
plan problems.
The Hastings Street experience taught many lessons.
Following
45
Hastings Street, the Public Facilities Commission contracted with
the Harvard Graduate School of Education for a school planning
project to produce programs and design criteria for twelve new elementary schools, all open-plan in varying degrees.
The study grqup
was headed by Professor Robert Anderson and produced the philosophy
which forms the basis of Boston's ongoing school construction program.
It should be noted that the Harvard Schools Project advocated total
open-plan schools - clusters of six classroom areas around a common
learning area and separated by no walls whatsoever.
However, internal
problems within the School Department forced a compromise and the
basic twelve schools incorporated moveable partitions which could
be used to separate the open area into self-contained classrooms.
Following the adoption of the Harvard Schools Project programs
for the twelve schools, the Boston School Department established its
Educational Planning Center using federal funds under Title IV of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.
The Educational
Planning Center was staffed by educational professionals, most
committed to instituting change but with sympathies to the existing
system having come up through its ranks as teachers and administrators.
The Educational Planning Center is more fully described in the
Appendix.
It is sufficient to note here that the Educational Planning
Center had already completed several school programs and were in
the process of producing others, beyond the twelve in the Harvard
Schools Project, before the Georgetowne Elementary School became a
community issue.
Unfortunately, even with the firm commitment qf
the City of Boston to produce well over a dozen new open-plan schools,
the concept of open area teaching was not, and still is not, accepted
in every quarter of the vast School Department bureaucracy.
Although
this division within the School Department is of some consequence
to this case study, it will be discussed in much greater depth in the
next case study concerning the Edward Everett School annex.
Thus it was with one year of operations at Hastings Street
School and with approximately fifteen other open-plan schools in
various stages of design and construction that the City again turned
to West Roxbury as the site of a new elementary school at Georgetowne.
Recently 600 new units of housing had been constructed as part of a
development in this area.
It was this new housing, above and beyond
the politics of the area, which forced the City of Boston to return
to an area with relatively new schools to build a second new facility.
Neighborhoods do communicate, and although Hastings Street School
was some distance from the proposed Georgetowne site, parents of
children at Georgetowne had heard of the Hastings Street "disaster"
and were already convincing themselves that an open-plan school
would not be built in their neighborhood.
Working through local
community organizations and individually, the parents made their
sentiments known to the Public Facilities Department, the School t
Department and the Mayor's Office.
CONFLICT.
As the situation developed, it was obvious that the
various elective officials could not allow the municipal bureaucracy to force an unpopular decision upon the powerful voters of
West Roxbury.
Moreover, these same elective officials were quick
to recognize the explosive nature of the school issue and were
reluctant to jeopardize their stature in the West Roxbury community
attitude.
Normally such recalcitrance on the part of a neighborhood
would be met with a range of strategies from quiet cajoling to
administrative imposition.
And, of course, if such tactics failed,
the School Department could always construct a conventional school
which was designed in such a way that it could be modified to become
open-plan in the future.
situation.
However, West Roxbury was a very different
One could not impose by fiat and defeat of the open-plan
concept in West Roxbury would seriously jeopardize the credibility
of open-plan programs in other neighborhoods of the city.
Despite
protests to the contrary, low-income communities still look to the
upper-income areas such as West Roxbury for models in dealing with
the city and a major defeat of open-plan in West Roxbury would mean
many low-income neighborhoods badly in need of new schools would
view open-plan as a contrivance foisted upon the poor.
With this in mind, the Public Facilities Department and the
Educational Planning Center undertook a program of meeting with
community leadership in West Roxbury and, ultimately, a public
meeting wherein the open-plan concept would be presented in detail
to the community to counteract the damaged image of Hastings Street
School.
At stake was not only the fifteen-plus schools in planning,
design and construction comprising a $75 million commitment to openplan, but the very philosophy of educational innovation in Boston
which so many persons both within and without the bureaucracy had,
worked to achieve over the preceeding decade.
Under the sponsorship of the Educational Planning Center,
community leaders in West Roxbury, including the highly respected
principal of the existing conventional elementary school in the
Georgetowne area, were taken on tours of operating open-plan schools
in the suburban Boston towns of Andover, Concord and Winchester. A
concerted effort was made to meet with the principal and teachers of
the Hastings Street School in a continuing effort to resolve difficulties.
Educators and community people were invited to compare success-
ful operations in the suburban towns with the Hastings Street operation in a similar physical plant.
The principal and several of the
Hastings Street School were never convinced, but many persons were
pleased with what they saw and returned to West Roxbury with a
belief that open-plan could work and could work well.
Meanwhile, the Public Facilities Department staff was put in
contact with the northeast regional office of the Massachusetts
Department of Education.
This office had overseen the successful
completion and operation of open-plan schools in Andover and
Winchester and had been in close contact with several school districts
in New Hampshire where open-plan schools had been favorably received.
Working closely with Mr. Louis Amadeo of the Department of Education, the Public Facilities Department prepared a collection of 200
color transparencies which could be presented to the community at a
public meeting.
Included were slides of the open-plan schools in
New England as well as drawings, charts and photographs of schools
across the United States and in Europe.
Mr. Amadeo graciously
agreed to make the presentation to the community, despite the fact
that the City of Boston does not fall into the Northeast Region
which his office represents.
Simultaneously, Public Facilities Department contacted school
committee members and city councillors to inform them of the upcoming public meeting and to brief them about open-plan schools.
It was understood that few, if any, of these officials would openly
participate in a crudade to convince the community.
The school
committee was already well aware of the implications of open-plan
education.
The council was less informed, but its members, as a
rule, accepted the information in preparation for any turn of events
on the part of the community. Not all councillors or committeemen
would attend the public meeting, but it was felt that it would be
better if those in attendance were at least personally, if not
publicly, receptive to the open-plan concept.
The architect was instructed to prepare a set of presentation
drawings showing the new school and strongly indicating how openplan could function by the illustration of classroom furniture layouts and various flexible configurations possible within open-plan.
It was further shown on these drawings that the proposed Georgetowne
Elementary School was not totally open-plan, with special spaces
provided for art, music, reading, physical education and other specialized activities.
Moreover, even the classroom clusters were tnot
true open-plan, as walls had been provided in strategic locations to
separate class areas from one another although not to enclose these
areas on all four sides.
This last filip was in part in response to
certain elements within the School Department who were as yet unconvinced that open-plan could work.
With this background, the Educational Planning Center and the
Public Facilities Department held-a public meeting to sell an unpopular idea to a hostile community - an idea which the School
Department itself did not accept completely.
CRISIS.
On a chilly evening in late October of 1969, community
people, teachers, politicians and school administrators began arriving
at the Robert Gould Shaw School auditorium in West Roxbury.
The
meeting was well attended with approximately 250 persons present when
the program began.
Surprisingly, only one school committee member and
no councillors attended.
Apparently, the issue was so unfavorable
many politicians felt that it would be unwise to give any voter the
opportunity to misconstrue their presence as a statement of support
for the bureaucratic innovators, who were, after all, also part of the
city government.
Unlike the elected officials, the Public Facilities Department
and Educational Planning Center staff were well represented in the
audience.
Although a community meeting of this nature usually in-
volves only one or two staff members, many of the staff decided to
attend just to see the presentation and to be present at what may
have well been the verdict on the future of the open-plan program
in Boston.
Of the 250 persons in the auditorium, about ten were
staff members of the two agencies.
Public meetings often involve small intrigues on the part of
both the community and the bureaucracy.
Georgetowne, being a
significant milestone in the open-plan program, had its share of
these small strategems and counter-plots.
Certain members of the
Georgetowne community had gone to great effort to get parents of
Hastings Street School pupils to attend, despite the fact that the
Georgetowne project held no implications for Hastings Street, a
fait accompli, and community persons seldom attend meetings which
do not affect their lives directly.
On the other side, members of the group making the presentation
station themselves, either intentionally or out of curiosity, around
the periphery of the hall, usually standing, and observe audience
reactions.
Few persons remain silent throughout a public meeting,
usually commenting to spouse or neighbor in adjacent seat upon points
both extremely favorable and unfavorable.
Such reactions can be
communicated to the person making the presentation, especially if
several persons are jointly presenting and one or more have the
In
opportunity to speak with colleagues during the presentation.
this fashion problems are anticipated and often avoided.
Each side
attempts to catch the other off guard and any reasonable method for
keeping the upper hand is worth the effort.
The slide presentation by Mr. Amadeo took approximately 90
minutes.
Even though this presentation was quite long, most people
remained attentive and the presentation seemed surprisingly well
received.
Following the lengthly general presentation, the architect
showed slides of drawings of the school and explained how modified
open-plan arrangements could work within the proposed building.
Having presented a total of about 225 color slides showing everything from furniture to children laying on carpeted floors reading,
questions were invited from the audience.
RESOLUTION. At this point, the meeting was now wide open and
the acceptance or rejection of open-plan was totally in the hands of
the community.
furniture.
A few questions were asked concerning such things as
One of the Hastings Street parents noted that the furn-
iture shown in the slides was not like the furniture at the Hastings
Street School.
The educational planner confirmed this and explained
that one of the problems at Hastings Street was inappropriate furnishings and that the lesson had been learned and some new equipment had
already started arriving at Hastings Street. This parry turned a
negative question into a positive response.
Most people had expected
the City to defend Hastings Street School and were caught off guard
by the willingness of the bureaucracy to confess its mistakes.
It was at this point that the highly-respected principal of the
existing Georgetowne Elementary School made a statement.
For well
over five minutes she spoke about the virtues of open-plan, making
reference to the schools which she had toured with the Educational
Planning Center.o At all times she was especially careful to tread
55
a thin line praising open-plan but arguing equally that it did not
negate her conventional school but only provided further options
for teaching.
This plea marked the turning point in the meeting.
Community persons who had been slowly convinced by the slide
i
presentation were now free to break ranks with their neighbors.
The first person to speak following the principal was a
mother who said that she was most impressed by the children involved
with books and projects by themselves and in positions seated on
tables, under tables, lying on the floor and so forth.
She argued
that it was silly, but it always seemed to her that her eight year
old son was always most engrossed when he was in such an improbable
position.
Her statement was well received and similar statements and
questions of genuine concern and not hostility flooded the speakers.
It was only through this chaos that it was possible to adjourn
the meeting before the embarrassing question of why only modified
open-plan was being attempted.
Several times this point was raised
by parents who had suddenly been converted to open-plan zealots. The
volume of questions allowed only brief answers and thus saved the
Educational Planning Center from having to make an attempt to justify
the dissension within the School Department itself.
56
The final question after the call for adjournment was not a
question at all. It was a statement by the lone school committeeman
in attendance who had been quietly seated at the rear of the auditorium throughout the entire meeting. Taking the floor, he madeta
brief but forceful statement about how the Boston School Committee
had worked long and hard to bring about educational change in response to the community and open-plan was just one way in which the
desires of the citizens of West Roxbury were being anticipated and
responded to by the Committee.
ANALYSIS.
The core of this case study is the resolution of
a potentially disasterous conflict between the Georgetowne community
and the school bureaucracy.
Had the community forced the hands of
the elected politicians, which would have been the case had this
incident come too close to a Council or School Committee election,
the Public Facilities Department and the Educational Planning Center
would not have had the opportunity to carefully prepare for the public
meeting.
The result in that case would have been the community,
acting out of ignorance, achieving responsiveness from its elective
officials but seriously jeopardizing a valuable program, not only
for Georgetowne but also for the other neighborhoods within the City
of Boston.
This, sort of timing is not within the control of anyone
in most instances and shows how luck, as well as skill, often plays
an important role in both politics and community relations.
Even with the careful preparation, there was no guarantee that
those community leaders carefully taken on tour of the successful
open-plan schools would be able to reverse their constituency without damaging their stature in the community.
Often community leader-
ship, and for that fact leadership in general, finds it difficult to
make policy reversals even in the face of strong evidence for fear
of appearing inconsistent or for fear of the issues being stronger
than the leadership itself.
It was fortunate that the principal of
the existing Georgetowne school was secure enough in the community to
lead such a reversal,
There have been instances when group pressure has prevented
community persons from admitting reversals of this nature and it is
only several days later when mail begins to trickle into City Hall
that it becomes clear that many persons do not endorse the course of
action committed at a public meeting.
This leads to the question of
whether or not large public meetings are suitable tools for achieving
community interaction.
Inview of the number of man-hours spent
doing groundwork for the Georgetowne project, it becomes clear that
it is well beyond the scope of the present municipal government to
implement this magnitude of operation on each and every project and
decision.
Nonetheless, it does point out the pathetically small
commitment to community interaction generally made as compared to
that which could be made in the ideal situation.
Finally, the issue of dissension within the school bureaucracy
on the question of open-plan as a suitable educational philosophy
should be mentioned.
It is clear that the job of introducing open-
plan schools to the neighborhoods would be much easier if the school
department were to fully endorse the concept.
However, change does
come slowly, and in order to make an innovation within the antiquarian
structure of the public school system some compromises must be made.
Over the years, power has distributed itself quite broadly within
the system and to implement change without a reasonable commitment
at all levels would be impossible.
This very problem of internal
politics and change will be discussed in more detail in the next case
study about the Edward Everett School annex.
CASE STUDY
THE EDWARD EVERETT SCHOOL ANNEX
CASE STUDY C:
THE EDWARD EVERETT SCHOOL ANNEX
Conflict within the school building bureaucracy, rather
than conflict between the bureaucracy and the community, forms
the core of this third case study.
While the bureaucracy
is able to establish some rational guidelines in dealing with
external pressures, internal problems tend to be less manageable, with pockets of power and political intrigues being
more covert than in the simple confrontation of two declared
opposing camps.
Especially in an older bureaucratic structure
like the Public School System, power has been distributed to
many actors and agencies and does not lie exclusively with
the nominal directorship.
GENERAL BACKGROUND.
The Town of Dorchester was annexed
to the City of Boston in the year 1870.
Its annexation was
part of a large expansion movement involving the construction of streetcar lines and the development of the small
towns surrounding Boston into commuter suburbs for the working class.
Dorchester lies just to the South of Roxbury,.
both areas being covered with three-story wooden frame
buildings, some older brick row houses, and a number of
larger apartment buildings built during the early twentieth
century.
Certain sections of both Roxbury and Dorchester
remained as detached single-family homes and a few farms,
but for the purpose of this case study, the areas concerned were and are almost entirely composed of multiple
occupancy buildings.
t
Roxbury, being the older of the two sections, has
traditionally taken the brunt of ethnic immigrations to
Boston over the past century.
First Irish, then Jewish
and finally Black populations have made Roxbury the staging
area for their upward mobility toward better paying jobs
and eventual migration to neighborhoods of lower density.
The Jewish pattern, following the Irish, is most pronounced
with Roxbury being abandoned for the newer apartments of
Dorchester and eventually fleeing Dorchester to move again
Southward into suburban Milton and throughout the Metropolitan area.
The Black migration since the early 1950s has
followed this pattern, pushing out of Roxbury and gradually
shifting the Northern portions of Dorchester from Jewish to
Black.
In the wake of this migration, many institutions which
had served the Jewish community suddenly found themselves'
with a new clientel, one to which they could not always
respond.
In the case of the synagogues and Jewish philan-
thropies, the institutions moved with their community leaving
their edifices behind to be purchased and run in many
instances by Black groups. The Public Schools, however,
did not move, could not change, and school administrations
which had dealt with a reasonably stable Jewish society
t
were struggling to cope with the problems of an entirely
different sort of minority community.
When a new school is built in a minority community
many problems are resolved just by virtue of a new staff
and new administration taking a fresh approach in a new
facility.
This is not to say that the new school is per-
fect but merely to point out that it is still flexible
enough in organization to address the many specialized problems of minority education.
Often this sort of flexibility
is impossible within an existing school due to the inability
and unwillingness of a principal and teachers to change a
half-century of habit within what has been their absolute
domain.
The Edward Everett School is located in North Dorchester.
It has had an ethnic composition changing from Jewish to
Black over the past ten years.
Only the shrinking enclave
of Irish in Dorchester keeps the school racially integrated.
In addition to its racial shift, its enrollment has increased
as families with larger numbers of children have occupied the available housing in the area.
Most recently,
an influx of Puerto Rican families has added even more
children to the enrollment with the resultant effect
of making the Edward Everett not only a minority school,
but an overcrowded school as well.
In response to this problem, the Public Facilities
Department acquired a former automobile showroom and
garage for conversion to an annex for the Edward Everett
School.
The acquisition of this building was due in part
to the immediate need for additional pupil places in the
district.
Rehabilitation often proves the best solution
when speed is necessary, for reasons which will be discussed in subsequent case studies.
The architectural firm of Bedar and Alpers of Boston
was hired to prepare a design for the renovation of the
garage into an elementary school building to accomodate
approximately 300 students in kindergarten to 5th grade.
Public Facilities assigned a project planner to coordinate
the project and he began to work closely with the Educational Planning Center and the architect.
Usually, the
architect receives a complete written document known
as educational specifications which details the exact
functions and relationships which his design should
reflect.
In this instance, however, the pressure of time
I
to open this building by the beginning of the next school
year forced all design to be based not upon a complete document but instead upon a series of memoranda drafted by the
Educational Planning Center and the Public Facilities Department.
The Educational Planning Center, as part of the School
Department, has a much more intimate grasp of internal problems within the School Department bureaucracy. Most of the
staff of the Planning Center have worked as teachers or administrators in the school system and hence are sensitive to
its problems.
As mentioned in the preceeding case study, the
first twelve schools built and programmed after the creation
of the Public Facilities Department were conceived by the
Harvard Boston School Study Team and not by the Boston School
Department. Although the Harvard group did an admirable
job in responding to the needs of the School Department, it
was felt by the top level administrators that the only way
to guarantee understanding on the part of the programming
agency would be to have that agency part of the School
Department itself.
Hence, when the federal funds avail
able under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
provided for a planning function, the Boston School Department formed the Educational Planning Center to assist the
Public Facilities Department in the programming of new
t
facilities.
In the case of the Edward Everett School Annex, the
Educational Planning Center described in its programming
memoranda what was essentially a conventional school of
about a dozen fully self-contained classrooms.
Despite
the fact that this format was completely contrary to the
avowed policy of open-plan schools, the planner in charge
of the project at Public Facilities Department understood
that internal problems within the school bureaucracy were
preventing this building from being an open-plan facility
and in view of the severe time restraint, it was decided
to proceed along these obsolesent lines rather than struggle
with what could become a difficult situation within the
School Department ranks. The Educational Planning Center
never fully explained what the problems were but merely advised Public Facilities Department that, in the professional
judgment of the Planning Center, the problem did not lend
-4!
66
itself to resolution within any reasonable length of
time.
With the parameters clearly specified for a conventional school, the architect produced a set of preliminary drawings which were approved by the Superintendent of
Schools.
With this much of the design resolved, the pro-
ject planner left on a brief vacation anticipating the
architect could continue along the lines of the preliminaries to produce working drawings and specifications for
bid.
CONFLICT.
Normally, at this point the project would
leave the Design and Planning Sections of the Public Facilities Department and be assigned to the Engineering Section
for review of technical details and cost estimation.
was the case in the Edward Everett School Annex.
Such
However,
when the cost estimates were returned the price of completion was considerably above that which had been anticipated
when the garage building was acquired.
Moreover, the Com-
monwealth of Massachusetts Department of Public Safety, which
is responsible for administering the schoolhouse construction code, would not approve the basic design in view of
the lengthy corridor needed to connect the classroom spaces.
The design had also incorporated an indoor play area in
the center of the building surrounded by classrooms.
These
classrooms utilized the common play area as part of the
egress system and this was not permissible under the Massachusetts code. The only apparent alternative to complete
redesign was to provide additional corridors and this would
use much of the available space within the building for noneducational purposes.
The Chief Engineer in charge of rehabilitation for the
Public Facilities Department called a hasty meeting with the
architect, the Department of Public Safety and the project
planner who was managing the project in his colleague's absence. After much discussion, it was agreed that the only
logical course of action would be to redesign the school in
such a manner that it became an open-plan school with selfcontained kindergartens, seminar rooms and remedial education
spaces along one edge. This configuration is typical of most
of the new schools in construction and was agreeable to the
Department of Public Safety.
favored the idea.
In addition, the Chief Engineer
With an eye toward the budget, he felt it
inefficient to demolish all of the existing partitions in the
garage building only to build new partitions for the school.
Moreover, as this facility would have a minimum life of
twenty years based upon present long range planning policies, it seemed foolish to build an obsolesent facility
which would cost money at a later date to remove the interior
partitions between the classrooms.
As a result of this meeting, the architect was instructed
by the Public Facilities Department to produce an alternate
scheme using the open-plan approach.
This scheme could then
be presented to the School Department and the costs and benefits of it versus the self-contained and corridor heavy scheme
discussed. Despite no obligations to redesign under the terms
of his contract, the architect consented and incurred additional
expenses in office time and consultant fees to produce a second
set of plans for the Edward Everett School Annex.
This decision to proceed with the development of an open
plan scheme was made entirely on the basis of safety codes,
cost, time and the official Dolicy of the School Department.
The Educational Planning Center was not consulted about the
change, it being felt that the most expedient approach would
be to involve them at the design review level after drawings
were completed. The Chief Engineer could see no rational alternative within the constraints defined to him and therefore it
69
was not until about a week later that the School Department
reaction to open-plan at the Edward Everett School Annex was
sought.
CRISIS. A meeting was called at the offices of the Pub-1
lic Facilities Department at City Hall in Boston.
In atten-
dance were the project planner, returned from vacation, the
architect, the special consultant on State Public Safety Codes,
the Chief Engineer, and two planners from the Educational Planning Center. The Chief Engineer explained to the group what
had happened with the cost estimates and the code problems.
He also gave his professional opinion about the possible obsolesence of the self-contained facility and the comparative
ease of construction of the open-plan rehabilitation.
The architect explained how he had contacted a respected
Rhode Island firm involved in educational space planning and
had had them develop a scheme which would accomodate the same
number of pupils and meet the guidelines published in the official programs for new schools under construction in Boston.
He then presented his new scheme which included a roof-top
play area enclosed under a transparent inflatable bubble
among other impressive features available at the same cost
as the self-contained scheme with its hundreds of feet of
interior partitioning.
The general reaction of the group was positive.
Even the educational planners from the School Department
felt that the scheme was quite good and could be workable.
However, the Educational Planning Center could not accept
an open plan scheme at this location.
For the first time, the Educational Planning Center explained in detail the factors progibiting the use of modern
educational concepts in the Edward Everett School Annex.
It
was carefully explained that the principal of the existing
school had been in that location for most of his career.
His
achieving the position of principal was tantamout to a naval
officer receiving command of his own ship.
However, after
many years of work with the school district at a school which
had scored' high on standardized tests within the system, he
had suddenly found his prestige being erroded as his school's
demography shifted from Jewish to Black and Puerto Rican.
As
he neared retirement, his sole goal was to keep the situation
under control.
By control, he meant that his teachers could
operate with these minority students within their individual
classroom and thus contain any problems to a small unit without having to confront them on a school-wide level.
According
to the educational planners, his educational philosophy was
not a
pical among many of the senior members of the school
system and was in part why the system had never accepted
totally the open-plan concept.
Despite the assurances of the educational planners that
the principal was unwilling to compromise, the Public Facilities Department felt that it was worth the effort to attempt
to acquaint him with the advantages of open-plan school in
a similar manner to that which had been so successful at
Georgetowne. A meeting was arranged between the principal
and the planning staffs, architect, engineer, and consultants.
RESOLUTION.
In late April of 1970 a meeting was held at
the offices of the Public Facilities Department. The academic
year was drawing to a close and it was imperative that the
Edward Everett School Annex be in construction as soon as possible to be available in time for the opening of school in the
late Fall.
Therefoye, this reeting was the last chance to con-
vince the principal, there being no time left to organize within
the community or even within the school staff.
A rather lengthy presentation of open-plan schools and
of the technical problems of the garage building was given to
the principal.
As predicted by the educational planners, his
reaction was negative.
He argued that the schools which
were shown and the new schools in construction were not
as heavily occupied by minority students.
Despite the fact
that several of the new Boston schools were located in areas
with 50% non-white populations, the principal was not to be
swayed.
He expressed his view that the students who were
assigned to his school could not be educated unless they
could be "controlled" and hence his first objective was
order and, to his mind, this would be impossible with the
open-plan context.
There was little point in prolonging the meeting.
His
tenured staff would back him up on this point and his nontenured staff carried little weight or respect in his mind.
The only resolution would be to impose the concept upon him
by administrative fiat. And, as he was only two years from
retirement and respected among the senior staff throughout
the system, any attempt by the School Department Administration
to counter his desires would have far spreading ripples within
the bureaucracy.
Following this meeting it was agreed by the Public Facilities Department and the Educational Planning Center that the
only course of action available would be to adapt the first design
to meet the public safety codes and proceed to create a
conventional self-contained classroom environment.
The Chief
Engineer and the Budget Officer were unhappy with this
arrangement as it would mean diverting funds from other
alteration and repair projects to provide the additional
money for the obsolescent design.
However, only in this
manner could the building be ready for occupancy in September and without it the school system would be hard pressed
to find seats for several hundred Dorchester children.
The school went into construction on schedule and
opened in the Fall of 1970 close to its anticipated completion date.
Thanks to throughful work on the part of the
architect, the building proved to be bright and attractive
with a pleasant outdoor play yard adjacent to the main entrance.
Nonetheless, it is educationally a building of twenty years
ago and cannot, without extensive renovations, provide many
of the options available in the new school facilities.
ANALYSIS. The core of this case study lies in the inability of the bureaucracy to cope with an internal problem
even when that problem has its source in a single person within a staff of several thousand.
Possibly, the parents of the
pupils who were to attend the Edward Everett School Annex could
have mustered enough strength to overcome the principal's opposition to open-plan education.
However, the fact that the
problem occurred close to the end of the school year and
was too critical with respect to time to allow a possible
protracted community debate, this option was not open to
the educational innovators.
t
Rejecting resolution from outside the bureaucracy, as
in the Georgetowne Case, the problem has its only resolution
within the Boston School System or between the system and
the Public Facilities Department or State Regulatory Agencies
such as the Department of Public Safety or the Department of
Education.
The internal structure of most public-school
systems makes such internal resolutions all but impossible.
Although nominally in charge, many administrators cannot afford to go against the sentiments of their subordinates for fear
of losing legitimacy and hence control.. In order for
top level decisions on policy to be truly accepted by the
operating staff, the administration must make a concerted
effort to work directly with the teachers*.
To do this is
a break in faith with middle management, the principals and
area superintendents.
To expect middle management to take on
unpopular chores on its own is to invite the accusation
that the administration is using its area superintendents and
principals as a shield against the teaching staff. This, of
course, is an over-simplification but indicates part of the
*See David Rogers' book 110 Livingston Street for a detailed
description of the internal -problems of a large school system
bureaucracy.
75
structural problem of resolving internal conflict internally.
A strategy more likely to achieve success is to have
unpopular decisions imposed from without.
In the case of the
first of the open-plan schools, the Public Facilities Commisseion
was a new agency charged with what had traditionally been a
School Department problem.
It was not so difficult for an
external force to take the blame for an unpopular move and
allow the school policy makers to blame any problems on the
newcomers.
Unfortunately, after the completion of the Harvard
Boston Schools Study which produced the twelve first-generation
open-plan schools, the Boston School Department established
the Educational Planning Center in the hope that internal planning would be more responsive to the needs of the system. Unfortunately, such internal planning is much more subject to
pressure from within the system and results in it being more
difficult to impose change on a recalcitrant system.
It is worth noting that the move to produce an open-plan
design at the Edward Everett School Annex was undertaken by the
Public Facilities Department and that had that department had
the authority to impose its solution on the school system, the
School Administration could have apologized to the principal and
pleaded lack of control.
As in the case of the Georgetowne Elementary School,
it can be seen that the situation is most distorted by time
constraints.
Given adequate time to carefully plan and con-
vince key actors and elements, inertia to change can often
be overcome.
However, placed against a tight deadline and
the course of least resistance becomes the only viable alternative.
This fact, if none other, makes advance planning a
most valuable tool in producing a rational decision-making
policy. This problem of time constraint will be looked at
further in the next case study concerning another renovation
project, the Copley Square High School.
77
t
CASE STUDY D
THE COPLEY SQUARE HIGH SCHOOL
CASE STUDY D:
COPLEY SQUARE HIGH SCHOOL
This fourth case study involves the creation of a new high school,
unlike any other in the City of Boston, in an existing building on a
downtown site acquired by the City specifically for this purpose.
As
in the preceeding case, time is one of the most important constraints
on the project.
However,, unlike the Edward Everett School Annex
where the prime impediment were personalities, the Copley Square High
School project is faced with a seemingly endless set of legislative
and bureaucratic restrictions which combine to thwart the goal of producing a completed school facility on schedule.
GENERAL BACKGROUND.
Copley Square High School is an outgrowth
of the Title I, Elementary and Secondary Education Act program
which was run in the Dorchester High School Annex building for
several years preceeding its ultimate relocation to a site at Copley
Square in Boston's prestigious Back Bay section.
The school is
dedicated to providing a quality education to its 350 pupils and to
do this it is utilizing many of the concepts developed in Philadelphia's "Parkway" program wherein students use resources throughout the city as part of their learning.experience.
The federal Title
I program assures that the student body of Copley Square High School
79
is racially and economically integrated.
Newbury
Its new location on
Street in the heart of the art gallery district gives the
students many opportunities to involve themselves in special projects
involving the arts and the many commercial businesses which abound
in the Back Bay and Downtown areas.
In this specific case study, the problems confronted include the
organization of the students and parents to favor a move to the Copley
Square site as well as the problem of explaining to the parents and
students why all of the amenities promised in the new location are
not completed on schedule as the work drags on for two academic
years.
Under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act an
Experimental high school was established within the Boston Public
School System.
It, along with its corresponding experimental elem-
entary and middle schools, was given the name of the Model Demonstration Subsystem, a title which described its intended function.
The Model Demonstration Subsystem High School was located in an
older yellow brick building at Codman Square in the Dorchester
section of Boston,
This building was located near Dorchester High
School and its basement was occupied by a vocational program in
80
baking run by Dorchester High School.
Other than this common
occupancy, the Model Demonstration Subsystem had no connection with
Dorchester High School.
Nonetheless, under the terms of the estab-
lishment of the Subsystem it was not an official Boston high sciool
and its students received their diplomas bearing the imprimatur of
Dorchester High School.
During the occupancy of the Dorchester High School Annex, the
Title I program granted the Model Demonstration Subsystem special
funds to install chemistry and bi6logy laboratories and other specialized equipment in the art suite of the school.
Meanwhile the enroll-
ment at Dorchester High School increased and two additional temporary classroom buildings were constructed to relieve overcrowding
in the main building.
By the spring of 1970 it became obvious that
additional space would be needed for the Dorchester High School and
an investigation was made by Public Facilities Department to see,
what relocation resources would be available for the Model Demonstration
Subsystem.
Fortunately, a building on Newbury Street in the Back Bay
section of Boston which had been occupied by a private business school
for the preceeding twenty years was going to become available for
0
occupancy.
The owner of the building was asking a substantial rent
increase upon the expiration of the business school's twenty-year
lease and the school was forced to consolidate its operations at
another location.
The building itself was a historic structuret
originally constructed in the 1880's as the Boston Art Club.
It was
the feeling of the Public Facilities Department that this would be
a good opportunity to acquire a building already certified by the
Department of Public Safety as a school and at the same time to
preserve an historic'edifice which might be demolished as several other
major historic buildings in the area had been during the preceeding
several years.
However, before the City of Boston could commit itself to the
acquisition of this facility, the parents, staff and students of
the Model Demonstration Subsystem High School would have to be agreeable to the move.
By statute, the School Department and the Public
Facilities Department have the authority to locate school facilities.
However, community pressure from the parents of the students and the
students themselves could prevent these agencies from exercising their
authority.
A conversation with the administrator of the Title I
program revealed that the parents and students had just become
settled into the Dorchester building and had just completed the
82
laboratory and art faciltites.
They would be- reluctant to move
without some incentive that the new facility would be a further
improvement.
t
Such an incentive took the form of a commitment by the Public
Facilities Department to provide complete chemistry and biology
laboratories in the new building as well as all new furnishings and
equipment, a photo darkroom,,a cafeteria, a complete art suite for
sculpture and other techniques requiring tools and equipment, new
lockers and carpeting throughout the building and other amenities.
Furthermore, the Boston School Committee agreed to designate the
Model Demonstration Subsystem High School an official high school,
giving it the name Copley Square High School.
On the basis of
these commitments, the move was agreed to by all concerned and the
Public Facilities Department began the process of acquiring and renovating the building for September occupancy.
CONFLICT.
In order to understand some of the problems con-
fronted in this renovation process it is necessary to have some
understanding of the funding process for school construction in
Massachusetts.
Basically, school construction falls into four
classes:
construction of new facilities with state aid; construct-
ion of new facilities without state aid; renovation of existing
school buildings; and, renovation of non-school buildings into
school facilities.
Suffice it to say that under various statutqry
constraints, Boston must pay for renovation of non-public buildings into schools entirely out of operating revenues collected
during the fiscal period in which the renovation is performed. That
is to say, money may not be borrowed by the issuance of bonds and
therefore the entire cost of renovation is reflected in the immediate tax rate rather than distributed over a period of years.
How-
ever, equipment such as furnishings may be financed through new construction bonds and therefore has a less pronounced effect on the
municipal tax rate.
For the purposes of this case it is important to note that the
municipal corporation counsel makes the distinction between city
owned buildings and public buildings owned by the city.
The latter,
such as a Park Department building being converted to a school,
is eligible for the use df bond revenues.
However, the former,
such as the Copley Square High School building which was acquired
by the City and had not served as a public building cannot use
such bond monies.
For a further description of this and other
technical constraints the reader is referred to the Appendices
describing agencies and actors and the flow of projects through
present procedures.
t
In view of this limitation on the use of borrowed monies, it
was decided to remove as many items from the renovation contract and
order these items as equipment, delivered and installed, through the
City's Purchasing Department.
Items such as laboratory equipment,
chalk boards, public address and intercommunication systems, moveable partitions, cafeteria and kitchen equipment, cabinet work, office
and classroom furniture, lockers, library shelving and even carpettng could be treated as equipment and hence purchased with new construction funds.
A,
An architect was hired to prepare a renovation scheme and to
provide specifications for this various equipment.
His design result-
ed in a general contract which included the relocation of some
partitions, new electrical and plumbing work, vinyl asbestos tile in
the laboratory and cafeteria areas, new lighting fixtures and interior painting.
Not included in the general contract was the equipment
listed above.
It was to be ordered through the purchasing department
and delivered to the job site and installed in coordination with the
work of the general contractor.
As soon as the general contractor began work it became apparent
that this procedure was going to produce many more problems thaq
had been anitcipated.
The Purchasing Department and the Public
Facilities Department were having a great difficulty in obtaining
suitable specifications for equipment from the architect.
Public
bid laws require the specification of non-proprietary items and
this made several of the specifications illegal and required their
redrafting by the Purchasing Department.
Failures on the part of
manufacturers to meet specifications were another source of trouble.
The supplier of the laboratory equipment had recently modified his
designs and therefore supplied upgraded equipment to the job site.
This created a problem with the plumbing not lining up with the
connections of the new equipment.
Probably the worst of the problems was with the carpeting
supplier who produced the lowest bid but did not start work for
eight months claiming that he was awaiting the appropriate carpet from
the manufacturer.
His contract would have been cancelled except that
under the public bid laws the process of cancelation and re-award
might have required more time and legal effort than waiting for the
first bidder to fulfill his agreements.
As of this writing the
carpeting has still not been installed on the stairways, the
supplier claiming that the drawings and specifications were ambiguous and that they did not call specifically for the stairways tto
receive carpeting.
Still other problems occurred when the general contractor was
prepared to install the art room sinks and the sink cabinets, not
included in the contract, had not been delivered to the job site.
The result was the general contractor leaving the sinks leaning against
the walls of the classrooms and promising to return at a later date,
at his discretion, to install the sinks after the cabinet work was
in place.
When the Copley Square High School opened in September of 1970
the building was in a state of chaos.
The general contractor was
still working in the building and the principal was required to shift
classes and even assign several classes to borrowed spaces provided
as a courtesy by nearby private schools and institutions.
The result
was a feeling of betrayal by the students, faculty and parents.
By
mid-October there was still no sign of the work being complete and the
parents decided to take their grievances to City Hall.
CRISIS.
seeking an
As Copley Square High Sxhool is composed of students
alternative
to the more conventional high schools in
Boston, their parents are quite involved in shaping the educational
policy of this experimental school.
For that reason, and despite
the fact that the students come fromall social and economic
sections of the city, the parents are especially articulate and
concerned about the facility in which their children are educated.
Therefore when the parents met with the Public Facilities Department
they were quite understanding and sympathetic to the complex problems
of the bureaucracy.
Their objective was not to indict the administrat-
ion but to find out what sorts of grass roots pressure they could
apply to insure the speedy completion of the Copley Square building.
The result of the meeting was that the parents went away with a
better understanding of the complexity of the problem and a sense of
helplessness in the face of the seemingly insurmountable bureaucratic
red tape.
At the same time, the Public Facilities staff promised
to do everything within its power to expedite the construction, but
it too felt helpless in view of the legal constraints.
During the academic year the parents met several times with the
educational planners and the Public Facilities Department director
88
and staff.
The result each time was a status report of the project
and a little more of the promised work being done.
By the end of
the school year the science laboratories were still not installed and
the kitchen equipment had been delivered but sat still crated and uninstalled for several months.
were frustrated.
Needless to say the parents and students
The teachers and principal were upset because many
of the students could not have science laboratory courses before
graduating.
Throughout the summer of 1971 the work continued.
The carpeting
was installed in the classrooms and the laboratory equipment was
installed after some modifications to the plumbing.
This work con-
tinued through the opening of school in the fall of 1971.
At that
time the parents again met with the Public Faiclities Department to
discuss the problem and hopefully to find some way in which the work
could be completed.
Among the alternatives available would be to continue to attempt
completion on a piecemeal basis, to attempt to scrape together funds
to let a small general contract which would involve all of the planned
items which were still undone as well as several other major items
such as a new elevator and additional egress for the fourth floor
89
rooms which were not legal for classroom use but could be used if
egress were added.
RESOLUTION. The parents agreed that little was being acconplished by continuing piecing together the shambles which the project
had become.
They conceded that little more would be accomplished and
that the best course would be to budget a major contract in the
following year's budget for completion during the summer of 1972.
This was agreeable to the Public Facilities Department as the building had now been in use for almost two academic years and hence could
be considered a "public building owned by the city" and hence be
eligible for the use of bond monies in the second general contract.
At the time of this writing the architect is at work producing
an evaluation of the situation and developing some cost estimates on
the additonal work to be performed.
It is apparent that the stat-
utory constraints which forced the city to approach this project through
a piecemeal contract and purchase strategy were quite costly compared
with the price of including all work in a single general contract.
Nonetheless, the direct impact on the tax rate was reduced even if the
total project cost, not considering intangible losses to school operations, was increased considerably.
90
ANALYSIS.
The key factor generating the problems encountered
in this case study was the unanticipated need of the City of Boston
to produce a high school facility to meet the criteria demanded by
the parents and students of the Model Demonstration Subsystem iq
a matter of four months and without any funds specifically budgeted
for the project.
Had the parents and students been willing to make
the move into a less complete facility, the Public Facilities Department could have budgeted funds for a major rehabilitation for the following year after the school had become a "public building".
However,
the parents felt, and rightly so, that pressing needs unforseen might
have diverted funds from their project if they allowed the work to be
postponed until after they had agreed to the move.
At no time was the bureaucracy acting out of malice.
uation was equally out of control by all parties involved.
The sitAt the
time that the small general contract and major purchasing strategy
was conceived, the Public Facilities Department had already used this
approach on several smaller projects.
The added complications of
coordination and scheduling with the general contractor on such a
major project were largely unanticipated.
Moreover, the separation
of the purchasing function from the Public Facilities Department
meant that the coordinating agency was not in control of one of the
91
most critical operations within the project.
The parents may have been too understanding to accomplish their
own goals.
Possibly if they had taken a less sympathetic approach
demanding completion rather than empathizing with the bureaucracy
they could have precipitated a second general contract at once using
revenue funds diverted from other alteration projects in the city.
This type of intense pressure never materialized, the parents always
operating within the liberal rather than the militant framework of
citizen participation.
It is disquieting to think that militancy is the only effective
mode of community control but this case seems to point out that only
by demanding personal goals over goals of the entire city could the
Copley Square High School parents and students achieve their immediate
needs more rapidly.
This, of course, is more the result of scarce and
restricted resources rather than anything structural in the bureaucracy which tends to favor one group over another.
Yet another factor to consider is the statutory restrictions which
limit the municipality to accept low bidders and the inability to
restrict contracts to firms of known capability and performance. True,
92
every public bidder is required to post bond in the amount of the
contract guaranteeing performance.
However, declarations of default
are subject to a lengthy court process and hence most defaults are
negotiated.
Furthermore, the slowness in payment by the municipal
accountants and the numerous restrictions upon public contractors often
produce situations where only one or even no contractor bids upon an
item.
Possibly a tightening up on the specifications on items bid
along with a streamlining of the bidding and payment processes could
improve this situation.
However, the multitude of statutes and
pressure groups with an interest in maintaining the status quo make
such changes unlikely in the near future.
Finally, and possibly most significant, is the fact that the
parents and students agreed that they would not have demanded such
extensive work to be performed so rapidly if they had known that it
would result in such shaos in the completion of the school.
Possibly
this is the reason why the relationship between the bureaucracy and
the parents and students was more sympathetic and less demanding after
the agreement to move to Copley Square was reached and the problems
of renovation had become obvious.
It is not uncommon for the community to believe that the bureaucracy can do anything if placed under sufficient pressure.
This may
93
be true, assuming the proper element of the bureaucracy is pressured,
but the community is rarely equipped to recognize what bottlenecks will
occur where in the process. This inability of the community to forsee
the long range implications of its demands is the core of the neixt
case study concerning the selection of a site for the Washington
Allston Elementary School replacement.
94
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CASE STUDY E
THE WASHINGTON ALLSTON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
CASE STUDY E:
THE WASHINGTON ALLSTON SCHOOL
The selection of a site for a major elementary school
and school for the hearing handicapped forms the fifth case study.
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In this case study the primary issue is the resolution of conflicting community goals involving the retention of homes, park
land, and business in selecting a school site.
In an effort to
be responsive to cummunity desires, the City of Boston responds
to each of these factors and in so going severely constrains the
design of a multi-million dollar educational facility
-
a facility
whose primary function is to serve the community which imposed
these constraints.
GENERAL BACKGROUND.
The Brighton section of the City of
Boston is located to the west of the bulk of the city and forms
a peninsula bounded by the towns of Brookline, Watertown and
Cambridge across the Charles River.
It is basically a fairly
dense middle class area which has developed since the end of
the last century.
Several major arteries from the west of Boston
pass through Brighton on their way to the downtown area.
These arter-
ies have produced a growth of strip commercial developments including drive-in restaurants, service stations, and other uses
96
which the long term residents feel are detrimental to the
stability of the neighborhood.
A further factor contributing
to the lessening stability of the Brighton neighborhood is the
influx of students from the neighboring universities in Cambridge,
t
Boston and Newton.
In the face of this Brighton has maintained a relatively
stable number of school aged children.
The two existing elemen-
tary schools in the Union Square area are both reasonably full
and show no sign of declining in enrollment.
Both of these schools,
the Andrew Jackson School and the Washington Allston School are
over fifty years old with the Washington Allston approaching the
end of its first century in operation.
In 1969 the Washington
Allston suffered damage to its assembly hall in a minor fire and
it was determined that in view of the overall condition of the
building that only temporary repairs would be made.
At about this same time a bill was filed with the Massachusetts State Legislature for the replacement of the Horace Mann
School in Roxbury.
The Horace .Mann School is a special school
serving hearing handicapped children since the end of the nineteenth century. Under special state funding it serves children
from throughout the Metropolitan area.
Because of the location
97
of other schools for the deaf in the Metropolitan area, it was
decided by the special education specialists that the new Horace
Mann School should be located in a site which could conveniently
serve the western suburbs of Boston and be integrated with a
conventional elementary school in order for the handicapped children to benefit from functioning in an environment more representative of the real world. The decision was made to combine
the Horace Mann school with a replacement for the Washington Allston
and Andrew Jackson Elementary schools.
The State, through spe-
cial legislation, would pay 65% of the construction cost of the
new facility.
At approximately the same time another bill was filed in the
State Legislature by Brighton representative Norman Weinberg to give
a portion of the Stanley A. Ringer Playground in Brighton to the
West End House, an organization similar in structure to a boys'
club.
Representative Weinberg had been a member of West End House
as a youth in the inner-city and his objective in this legislation was to allow West End House to build a new facility to serve
Brighton youth and to replace the old West End House lost to the
West End Urban Renewal Project.
The bill was passed with little
publicity and the West End House was given its choice of site
within the boundaries of the Ringer Playground adjacent to the
98
Andrew Jackson School.
In theory, the West End House was to serve the Brighton
community.
In reality, it was being built as much to serve the
alumni of the old West End House as the community.
When appro&ched
by the City of Boston to arrange an agreement wherein the swimming
pool and gym at West End House could be used by the public school
children during school hours (the boys it was to serve would be
in school at those times), the West End House responded by saying that the facility could not accomodate girls and that the many
of the retired alumni had given funds with the anticipation of
being able to use the facility during the day.
Needless to say, the
Brighton community was somewhat disgruntled about this use of
park land with little or no community consultation and this sentiment was later to have considerable impact in the community selection of a site for the new school.
CONFLICT.
In late June of 1969, at the very end of the school
year, a public meeting was held at the William Howard Taft School
in Brighton. At that meeting about a half-dozen school sites
were proposed by various members of the community and were subsequently evaluated by the Public Facilities Department.
Discussions
at the public meeting indicated that the Brighton community was
99.
unwilling to sacrifice any residential buildings in the face of
a mounting shortage of moderate income housing.
Moreover, no
businesses employing local people or contributing major sums
in tax revenues could be removed to make way for a new school.
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Finally, the community was adamant about the taking of park land
and open space for a school facility.
In the face of these con-
straints, it was still the general sentiment that the school should
be centrally located and adequate in size.
During the following weeks the Public Facilities Department
evaluated the several possible sites on the basis of these criteria.
It was determined that only through the use of the Andrew
Jackson School site adjacent to the Ringer Playground could a
school be built which fulfilled the community criteria.
Even at
that the park would have to be used for open play space, but as it
was already unofficially used by the Jackson School it was felt
that this would pose no problem.
A meeting was held at the Allston-Brighton Area Planning
Action Center (APAC) with the various community leaders who had
identified themselves at the public meeting.
At that smaller gather-
ing the possibilities of using the existing Jackson School site were
discussed. Among the solutions posed by the Public Facilities De-
100
partment was a scheme wherein the school would be built on
the cramped Jackson School site and a gymnasium, for school
and community use, would be built underground in a hillside in the
park. After much heated discussion comparing the school scheme
t
with the West End House, it was agreed by the group that the
school gym, being totally buried in the hillside would use no
area of the park and could be used after school hours independently
of the school for community girls and women who had no recreational
facilities in the area.
The site of the existing Jackson School is one block from
Union Square, a major intersection and formerly the commercial
and institutional center of the community.
Over the past quarter
century, Union Square has seen its prominently steepled church, its
theatres, and its shopping replaced by gas stations and drive-in
restaurants.
It was proposed by one community organizer that the
school site be extended to Union Square and that the school auditorium and community facilities be located in a position of prominence in the hope of revitalizing the Square.
As this exten-
sion would involve the taking of one building containing three
dwelling units, a gas station and a drive-in fried chicken restaurant, it was agreed that this would be a reasonable trade-off
to make for the expanded school site. Two houses adjacent to the gas
101
station were not to be included as that would increase the number
of dwelling units removed from the housing market.
Subsequently another public meeting was held at the Taft
t
School to present this proposal.
At first community reaction was
negative concerning the use of the park for the underground gymnasium.
After lengthy discussions about park ecology, recreation planning,
the coasting hill used by the youngsters and the ultimate form of
the park, it was apparently agreed that the scheme was a sound one.
The general reaction to the taking of the three dwelling units
was favorable as it would eliminate a drive-in restaurant and a
filling station which the neighborhood felt were blighting elements.
The scheme which was evolved at that public meeting consisted
of a school with adequate off-street parking for faculty and visitors, with an auditorium, library and community room located on
busy Union Square and with a gymnasium and recreation complex located
at the opposite end in and adjacent to the Ringer Playground.
The
existing Ringer Playground was divided into several areas consist-ing of a flat ball field and tennis courts, a rolling hill for
coasting and kite flying, a heavily wooded cliff area and an area
of benches and paths used by the elderly and mothers with small
toddlers.
The proposal for the development of the buried gymnasium
102
would change no feature of the park except for a slight eevation of the tennis courts as a barrier between the active play
of the ball field and the quiet area of the paths and benches.
It was the general feeling at the meeting that the scheme was
sound, sensitive, and even beneficial to the park which had shown
signs of vandalism and blight over the preceeding years.
CRISIS. Although the sentiments expressed at the public
meeting seemed to indicate that the problem of site had been
resolved, the following few days brought about a dozen letters
to the School Department and the Public Facilities Department
protesting any encroachment on the Ringer Playground.
One
woman, a biology instructor at Boston University who had spoken
about park ecology at the public meeting but who was seemingly
convinced that the design would be sensitively handled, had obviously changed her mind and presented the Mayor with a petition
bearing approximately fifty signatures protesting the use of
parkland for school purposes.
Subsequently, a group of about ten women from the Massachusetts League of Women Voters called upon the Director of the
Public Facilities Department. They were presented with the
scheme and agreed that the proposal was both reasonable and sensibly handled.
However, as they could not be given a positive
103
guarantee that the park land would not be further violated
when and if the school were abandoned in the distant future,
they refused to endorse the proposal and remained in opposition to any incursion into the park.
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In the face of this opposition, it was decided by the
Public Facilities Department to again meet with the community
leadership.
Upon presenting the fact that the city had come
under pressure by various elements to abandon the park scheme, it
became known that the community leadership had also been contacted
by these persons and groups and had decided that the only possible
site would be the Jackson School Site without the parkland.
As the Educational Planning Center had yet to complete the
program and specifications for the new school, it was impossible
to prove one way or the other that the reduced site would be
impossible for a school of this size.
The only guidelines avail-
able to the Public Facilities Department were site sizes for other
schools in construction and none of these contained the unknown
of a special school for the hearing handicapped.
Unfortunately,
in the fear that the community would oppose the Horace Mann School
component if it were thought that it was contributing to the site
104
size problem, the Public Facilities Department decided to continue its exploration of the reduced site without any specific
mention of the size problem other than a general statement
concerning the severe limitations which had been imposed upon
the school.
As knowledge of the proposed site spread through the
community other problems became apparent. Many of the residents of the immediate neighborhood contacted the Public Facilities Department to decry the lack of off-street parking and the
narrow and congested streets which could not accomodate the
traffic.produced by such a major new facility. These people
were assured that the new facility would include off-street
parking and -would have vehicular access directly from the
major arteries at Union Square.
The owner of the fried chicken drive-in contacted the
Public Facilities Department to protest that he had been
unaware of the public meetings despite their publication in the
local newspaper and notices appearing in local stores including
his own.
He explained that he had a chain of eleven of these
drive-ins throughout Boston and that the Union Square operation
was one of the few which was turning in a profit.
He further
105
argued that his operation was unlike the other fast food franchises in the area with few meals being consumed on the premises,
his primary market being take-home dinners.
He claimed that his
relations with the neighborhood were cordial and that the neighborhood would back him up in his desire to remain on that site.
Despite his protestations, no community person ever came forth on
his behalf.
His protestations were rechanneled to legal and
political ploys, including the gift of reduced cost meals to
senior citizens as part of the Mayor's Elderly Project during
the recent campaign by the Mayor for reelection. As of this
writing he is still on the site although legal actions have
been started toward acquisition and eviction.
When the program for the school was finally obtained from
the Educational Planning Center, an architect was hired and he
commenced to produce some preliminary site studies as to building
massing and traffic flow. The Boston Traffic Department was
consulted concerning access from Union Square and their reaction
was negative unless the city acquired an additional two houses
to increase the length of street frontage and thus further separate
the distance between entrance and exit driveways.
The owners
of both of these houses were contacted by the City and both expressed
106
a willingness to sell.
Unfortunately, both owners had also been
contacted by the owner of the fried chicken drive-in and he had
expressed an intention to pay an inflated price for the purpose
of relocating on that adjacent site.
An analysis of this situation showed several interesting
implications.
First, the total land area of the two houses was
inadequate for the drive-in restaurant without a variance under
the present zoning ordinance. Such a variance would require
a public hearing and in view of the community sentiment against
the fast food franchises was unlikely to be granted.
However, as
damage awards in eminent domain cases are based upon appraisals
which consider present market transactions in the area, it nay
have been the intention of the restaurant owner to use this
transaction to increase his damage award in the anticipation
that the city would need the additional land and would then
be forced to reimburse him for his added acquisition expenses.
A second possibility was that this was merely a tactic to further
confuse the situation in the hope that the municipality would
be reluctant to get involved in such a legally complex situation
with the danger of interminable delays in the Courts.
And so, the City was faced with the quandry of proceeding
with construction on a possibly inadequate site or returning to
107
the community for a complete reexamination of the criteria which
had been so adamantly endorsed over the preceeding two years.
RESOLUTION.
Faced with the possibility of a lengthy delay,
t
it was determined that the best course of action would be to
attempt to continue with the design of the school on the reduced
site. The architect would produce a preliminary design and Lhe
community would be given a chance to reevaluate the criteria in
view of the problems of traffic, parking, recreational space,
building mass, height, and setback, access of emergency vehicles
and general neighborhood impact.
At the time of this writing the architect is at work producing these preliminary designs.
Discussions with community
leaders have indicated that there may have been a softening of
the community stand on the various criteria over the past year.
The West End House has been completed and in use for one year
and is now only an issue in memory. The housing crisis, although
still severe, has been alieviated somewhat by rent control and
the economic freeze.
If the project is brought back to the com-
munity, it is hoped that the design can be evaluated in a less
emotional light and that decisions taking into account the long
108
range effect on the neighborhood can be made.
Moreover, community leadership has not been constant
over the past two years as persons move in and out of the
What the reaction of the present leadership will
neighborhood.
be is hard to assess but it can be reasonably assured that solely
by virtue of the fact that it is new leadership, it will not be
locked into decisions made in the past.
Usually, this lack of
continuity creates problems for the ongoing school planning
process by forcing the municipal planners to backtrack over decisions already made.
In this case it may prove the saving grace
of the community.
ANALYSIS.
The core of this case study lies in the
inability of the Brighton community to reconcile the conflicting
goals of the school and the need to retain housing, park land
and businesses.
As both housing and park land were crisis issues
at the time that the original site selection meetings were held,
the community could not accomodate another crisis and hence placed
the school on a site smaller than it deserved.
In the first case study concerning the Portland Area Vocational
Technical High School, this tendency of any group or organization
to cope with only one issue at a time was demonstrated.
Possibly,
109
had the Brighton community not been in a furor concerning West
End House and the student housing situation, the Washington
Allston School would have taken prime importance to the detriment
of the park and housing situations.
I
When the Public Facilities Department met with the community
to discuss the scheme involving the buried gymnasium the reaction
was not so unfavorable as to predict the vehement response in letters,
telephone calls and the visit of the League of Women Voters.
Had the City had a full time community organizer in the neighborhood
to counteract rumors and to explain the plan to concerned residents this problem might have been avoided.
However, present
funding and staffing patterns seem to limit community interaction
to formalized meetings thus allowing problems to grow in the
community until they reach a level where they are difficult or
impossible to overcome.
Despite the fact that the owner of the fried chicken drive-in
restaurant was given relocation assistance and offered over a
dozen possible sites for such relocation, his protests were not
entirely unreasonable. The community had singled him out as a
sacrifice for the school as they had little liking of any of the
fast food franchises in the area.
Despite the fact that this
110
particular drive-in was clean, well operated and catered to
families for take-home food which was usually a substitute for
home prepared meals, the community made no distinction between this
operation and the numerous hamburger and pizza restaurants which
attracted rowdy crowds of youngsters with the attendant litter
and fast and noisy cars.
In this instance the community was
acting much like the Portland City Council in the first case
study wherein the Council saw a new school as an opportunity to
remove an undesirable use of a neighborhood as low-income
housing.
The inclusion of the Horace Mann School for the Deaf in
the project always had the potential of becoming an issue with
the community. At several points in the process citizens raised
the question of whether or not the special facility was increasing
the need for landtakings in assembling a suitable site.
The
response of the educational planners was that the actual space
used by the handicapped students alone was comparatively small, less
than fifteen percent of the total building area.
The special
reading and speech laboratories would benefit all of the pupils
in the school as would the impressively staffed evaluation unit.
Despite the fact that the community facilities such as the auditorium and community meeting rooms contributed almost as much
lil
to the school's bulk as the Horace Mann component, the issue of
overly large community facilities was never raised.
Thanks to
careful work in the community by several parents of handicapped
children who were attending the Horace Mann School, the prospect
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of excluding the special education function never materialized
as an issue to more than one or two persons in the community.
This
local grassroots organization paid large dividends in the aversion
of this possible second crisis which, through the loss of the
special 65% State aid, could have completely stymied the school
project.
Because all of the community leadership was already committed
to the issues of park preservation and the aleviation of the housing
shortage no additional leadership came forth to address the school
site issue within the framework of the educational needs of the
school itself.
Even if such leadership had existed it would
have been doubtful that the community could have been mustered around
this issue as the intensity of concern with parks and housing tended
to preclude any other concerns in the neighborhood.
Any additional
leadership coming forth would have been forced to operate within
the same organizational framework and hence with the same issues
before any attempt could be made to concern the citizens with the
school as a separate issue.
Community leadership depends heavily
112
upon at least minimum acceptance of its nucleating issue and any
attempt by the leadership to change issues or reverse positions
seriously jeopardizes the leader's ability to remain in control
and presents other personalities with the opportunity to disI
place the existing leadership on the very issues which that
leadership had been using as an organizing force.
This point
was discussed to some extent in the second case study concerning
the Georgetowne Elementary School and will be expanded upon in
the next case study wherein the actual operations of community
leadership will be looked at in more detail.
113
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CASE STUDY F
THE MARGARET FULLER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
114
CASE STUDY F:
THE MARGARET FULLER SCHOOL REPLACEMENT
This sixth case study is concerned with the operations
of community leadership in the school building process.
Un-
like the preceeding case where the major issues were already
t
formed in the community prior to the proposal of the new
school, the Margaret Fuller Elementary School Replacement is
a new issue injected into a relatively unorganized community.
The case concerns itself with the methods and techniques used
by the president of the local Home and School Association in
exploiting the new school as an organizing issue in a campaign
for community prestige.
Of particular interest are the strate-
gies used by the school building bureaucracy to keep the issue
of the school divorced from other community goals and the
attempt by-the bureaucracy to assure broad spectrum community
representation in the search for a new school site.
GENERAL BACKGROUND.
Jamaica Plain is a diverse section
of Boston whose neighborhoods range from large estates overlooking Jamaica Pond to shabby ethnic ghettos of blighted
housing and low grade industrial uses.
Recent attempts by
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to construct a major eightlane expressway parallel to an existing railroad right of way
through the center of Jamaica Plain have been met with fierce
I
115
community resistance. Through the efforts of various community
leaders and advocate planning organizations such as Urban
Planning Aid of Boston, certain segments of the community
have learned that community organization can be a successful
technique in obtaining a measure of responsiveness from major
I
bureaucracies such as the Massachusetts Department of Public
Works and the Governor's Office.
The section of Jamaica Plain dealt with in the particular
case study is the area around Egleston Square.
Egleston
Square is a badly blighted area centering around a decrepid
terminal of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's
elevated transit line.
Moving away from Egleston Square in
an easterly direction the neighborhood gradually improves in
condition and meets the edge of Franklin Park, the largest
park in the Boston park system designed and planted by Frederick Law Olmstead near the turn of the century.
To the west
of Egleston Square lies an area of moderately well kept multiple family buildings gradually being occupied by increasing
numbers of Spanish speaking persons, many of whom are Cubans
of middle-class background.
To the south extends the elevated
structure along Washington Street toward Forest Hills, its terminus and northern edge of a substantial white middle-class
area among the more suburban in nature within the Boston city
116
limits.
Along Washington Street lie many light industries
and blighted residential and commercial buildings suffering
from the noise and darkness caused by the elevated transit
structure.
Midway between Egleston Square and Forest Hills
is the intersection of Green Street and Washington Street,
another station on the transit line.
Green Street runs east
and west, passing into Franklin Park on the east and into a
squalid industrial area which stretches to the railroad on the
west.
Green Street forms the southern boundary of the Model
Cities program area in Boston.
The existing Margaret
Fuller Elementary School is on the portion of Green Street
known as Glenn Road, to the east of Washington Street and
just out of the Model Cities area.
Fortunately, over the past few years of its existence,
the Boston Model Cities Agency has overcome its original reluctance to cross its arbitrary boundaries and has become
increasingly involved in programs and projects lying just
over its boundaries which affect the lives of Model Cities
residents within the program area.
For that reason, the
Public Facilities Department turned to the Model Cities Agency
to act as a preliminary study and organizing group for the
community planning effort to find a site for the new Margaret
Fuller School.
117
The Model Cities Agency, working through the Education Taskforce and its planning staff, prepared some preliminary land-use studies of the area and scheduled several community meetings through the Home and School Association at
the Margaret Fuller School.
The result of these meetings was(
the preliminary selection of about four sites for consideration
by the Public Facilities Department.
Subsequently, the Public Facilities Department met with
the parent's organization for a brief summary of the project
status and to solicit community views.
At that initial
meeting, seeming restricted to those who had received notices
sent home with the children attending the Fuller, Ellis Mendel
and Theodore Roosevelt Schools, the Public Facilities Department
first encountered the woman who was president of the Home and
School Association.
Her husband, a young architect working
for a Boston firm was in attendance at this meeting.
Despite
the fact that he had not yet obtained his registration as a
professional, he was teaching evenings at the Boston Architectural Center, a non-degree granting institution run by the
Boston Society of Architects.
As an academic project he had
several of his students prepare a design and model of a possible elementary school for one of the proposed sites.
Despite
the fact that the school designs could not meet State standards
118
in size and arrangement and that it was premature to
consider design when a site had yet to be selected, the
Public Facilities Department and the Education Planning Center
commented favorably about the design thinking that this first
meeting would be a good time to present the concept of open
plan schools to the community.
As the designs shown were
open plan in basic nature, comments from the professionals
in attendance were addressed to that facet alone in the
assumption that open-plan would be an issue which could be
avoided as a controversy at this early stage.
CONFLICT. Unfortunately, what the professionals overlooked
at this first meeting was that these models had been prepared
not in advocacy of open plan but instead with the thought of
expounding upon the virtues of this one site possibility to
the exclusion of the others.
Of the four proposals, this site
was the most "rural" in nature, abutting Franklin Park near one of
its most rustic areas and occupying an area presently including
some of the best and most stable large houses in the neighborhood.
Conversations with the Home and School Association presi-
dent and her husband much later in the planning process indicated that they saw themselves as protectors of the suburban
ideal within the inner city and that this school site was
being proposed in an effort to equip their neighborhood with
119
a suburban status symbol as a psychological device to
encourage their children to what they believed to be the
American dream.
t
At a subsequent meeting held at one of the neighborhood
churches, the Public Facilities Department made an attempt
to present the four preliminary sites as to their basic comparative virtues and faults.
By that time it had already
become obvious that there was a movement underway to promote
the Franklin Park site although the source of that movement
was still unknown to the municipal planners.
This meeting,
was the second contact between the Public Facilities Department
and the community although several other meetings had been held
by the Model Cities Agency.
Normally, a second meeting is used to further eliminate
site possibilities pn the basis of general observations.
In
preparation for the second meeting in Jamaica Plain the Public
Facilities Department had discussed the sites with the Model
Cities Agency and had the planning staff make a brief tour
of the proposed sites to familiarize itself with the problems
and possibilities.
As a result of the survey tour, it was the
intention of the Public Facilities Department to use the second
meeting to eliminate two of the four sites because of severe
120
family relocation problems or totally inadequate site size.
However, when the Public Facilities planner arrived at the
meeting the situation was quite different from that which had
been anticipated.
After a presentation of the four sites with color slides
made a few days before the meeting, the Public Facilities Department planner attempted to solicit comments on each of the
sites from the audience.
Using a chalkboard divided into four
columns, one for each potential site, the planner attempted
to get the audience to list the various advantages and disadvantages of each site.
As Model Cities had distributed
printed material concerning each site at a preceeding meeting,
this approach should have brought the various conflicts out
into the open.
However, response was minimal and the planners
from Model Cities, the Educational Planning Center and Public
Facilities Department were forced to fill in the chalkboard with
little support from the assembled community.
After a few minutes of this approach, one member of the
community took the floor and requested that a vote be taken.
It was explained that the purpose of the community meetings were
to hear public sentiment and not to be a quasi-elective process.
Many citizens are unable to attend community meetings for one
reason or another and such a voting process would completely
121
disenfranchise those persons who were absent through apathy,
conflicting commitments or ignorance of the meeting.
This
particular meeting concerning the Margaret Fuller School Replacement vividly demonstrates the danger in taking a single community meeting as a reliable indicator of community sentimentt.
Allowing various persons to speak to the issue of site
selection, it became obvious that with only one exception all
of those assembled were in favor of the Franklin Park site.
The only dissention came from a person who owned a home which
would have to be taken by eminent domain if that site were
selected.
The general tenor of the meeting was a strong dis-
satisfaction with the City as it had not prepared detailed
acquisition and relocation cost figures and a timetable for
the construction of the new school on this one specific site.
The meeting was finally adjourned with those present demanding
that the Public Facilities Department provide this information
at once and proceed with the design and construction of the
new school.
CRISIS. At this point in the process it became obvious
to the Public Facilities Department that an unfortunate error
had been made in trusting the community organizing task to the
local leadership.
No matter how solid a community is concerning
122
an issue such as site selection, it is beyond all reasonable
probability that a community meeting will produce such complete lack of dissent. There are always persons in a neighborhood with conflicting goals and aspirations and usually these
persons will make an extra effort to appear at public meetings to make their sentiments known.
By allowing the Home and
School Association to distribute notices of the meeting in
the neighborhood the leadership of that organization had effectively edited the community which would attend the public
meeting either through selective distribution of the notices
or by carefully wording the notices in such a way as to not
arouse. dissent.
In part because of a commitment to community participation and in part because of a sound knowledge of the implications of such exclusionary practices, the school planning
bureaucracy makes a conscious effort to achieve the broadest
possible representation at these community meetings.
By
excluding persons in the preliminary planning stage, problems
of dissent at the time of relocation and land acquisition often occur.
Such problems at a point in the process where funds
are being expended and designs have been made are both costly
and delaying. Unfortunately, the community leadership at the
Margaret Fuller School did not foresee the implications of their
123
expedient solution.
The Public Facilities Department recognized the potential
problems which could occur if the Franklin Park site were pursued without additional community inputs.
Moreover, the Homet
and School Association prepared a press release for publication in the Model Cities Newspaper stating that the Franklin
Park site was all but official as a result of the community
meeting.
This press release was sufficient to precipitate
several telephone calls and letters to the Public Facilities
Department from community people who felt unrepresented in the
process.
If it were true that the Franklin Park site was the most
desirable location for the school, the Public Facilities Department could call another meeting, this time doing its own publicity and community organization, and attempt to quell any opposition in the neighborhood.
However, if the other site (two
having been eliminated in the cursory survey) were superior,
the situation had already been reached wherein the municipality
would have to attempt a reversal of organized community opinion through the use of factual material and the involvement of
those community persons thusfar not involved.
It should be
noted at this point that it was the opinion of the Public Facili-
124
ties Department based upon past experiences that the Franklin
Park site was a poor choice.
However, bureaucratic opinion
is of little value in convincing a community and more specific evidence would have to be provided.
t
Utilizing its planning, architectural and engineering
staff, the Public Facilities Department commenced a detailed
investigation of the two potential sites.
It became apparent
that the second site, a partially vacant piece of land abutting
the existing Margaret Fuller School and containing a rock cliff
face, a large Boston Edison Company transformer substation and
located to the rear of some unattractive industrial buildings
along Washington Street was far from ideal.
However, the
Franklin Park site was much too small and would require the closing of a street between the site and the park and legislative
consent to turn part of the Olmstead woodlands into playing
fields for use by the school.
In order to enlarge the site adequately to not require
the street closing or removal of rustic parkland, about thirtyfive houses would have to be taken.
This, of course, was an
alternative which was obviously unreasonable.
Therefore, the
Public Facilities Department concentrated on the site as proposed by the community and the alternate site adjacent to the
125
Fuller School.
As a result of the detailed research done by the Public
Facilities Department, the following information was uncovered
concerning the Franklin Park site:
The Traffic Department was
vehemently opposed to the closing of the street between the
proposed site and the park.
The street contained below its
surface a major four-foot diameter water main which would have
to be either relocated or rebuilt to accept a school building
over it. The street contained six six-hundred pair telephone
cables including the Boston to Providence toll trunks.
The
telephone company informed the City that it would take a complete
engineering study and the replacement of these lines from repeater station to repeater station as they were among the first
installed in the Boston area and dated from 1901.
The site was
quite hilly with large outcropping of ledge requiring extensive
blasting in close prpximity to houses and two nursing homes.
Due to limitations of the powers of the City concerning park
lands (as opposed to playgrounds like the Ringer Playground in
the preceeding case), a special act of the Massachusetts State
Legislature would be required to turn a portion of the park over
to the School Department for school use.
The construction of a
school on this site would seriously damage one of the few remaining well-kept streets in the area and would locate the school
126
against a park which was unused and hard to police during the
night time.
The alternative site adjacent to the Margaret Fuller School
was not without its limitations; it was also rocky and would
require considerable blasting and filling.
It was composed of
many smaller parcels which would have to be severed from the
industrial buildings along Washington Street with the resultant loss
of parking and expansion space for these industries.
The Boston
Edison transformer at one end of the site would be costly and
difficult to relocate although it might be enclosed or located
within the school building.
The site was close to the Washing-
ton Street elevated transit structure and the heavily travelled
truck route below as well as the blight along Washington Street.
The existing Margaret Fuller School may have to be demolished to
make room for the new school requiring the displacement of the
pupils for two academic years. The site did not have the pleasant
suburban character of the Franklin Park location.
With this information in hand, the director of the Public
Facilities Department and the staff planner attended a small
meeting called by the president of the Home and School Association. At that meeting, owners of the business along Washington
127
Street who would be affected were present although none of the
owners or residents of the Franklin Park site were invited. The
director briefly presented the problems involved and assured the
group that the City would make every effort to respond in a reasonable fashion to the needs of the community.
It was explained
that the Washington Street site would cause the minimum amount
of damage and that as the Edison transformer was at one end of
the site, efforts to enclose or relocate it could proceed even
while the school was in construction.
However, the relocation
of the telephone lines from the Franklin Park site could not
begin until the telephone company was assured of the approval of
the site by the State Department of Education and this approval
could not be given until the State Legislature had agreed to the
transfer of the parkland.
In effect, this meant that the Wash-
ington Street site could yield a completed school in about two and
one half years while the Franklin Park site would take about five
years, assuming that the legislature was amenable to transfering
a park serving a city-wide function to a neighborhood use.
Follow-
ing the meeting, those in attendance were taken on a tour of
both sites and their potential as building sites was explained.
The business owners in attendance, although not overly pleased
at the prospect of losing expansion space, admitted that the plan
would not cause irreparable damage to their operations.
It was
agreed that a third, and final public meeting would be held to
128
present both sites in detail to the full community.
Having now learned that the local community leadership
was not to be trusted in mustering maximum community involvement, the Public Facilities Department requested that Model Cities
and the principal of the Fuller School take charge of distributing
announcements of the public meeting.
Special emphasis was to be
given to contacting residents, owners and abutters on both sites.
At this point it should be noted that the community leadership had stated on numerous occasions to both the community and
the school planning bureaucracy that the only buildings to be
demolished on the Franklin Park site were two houses, a "fraternity" house, a burnt out house and an abandoned Ukranian social
club.
The Public Facilities Department had received telephone
calls from the owners of the two houses but had heard little
from the other owner's and occupants.
This intensive leafleting of
the neighborhood produced the following information:
The frater-
nity house was not a fraternity house but an apartment building
owned by a Northeastern University fraternity and operated for
profit as part of that organizations endowment.
It was a source
of housing for several neighborhood families and some unmarried
individuals who were possibly the source of the "fraternity
129
house" image.
Similarly, the Ukranian social club was a ,re-
creation building run by a Ukranian group and was not abandoned.
The group was about to undertake renovations in the hope of
opening the building to all community youngsters and was awaiting word from the City before expending any funds for fear of
losing the building to the new school.
And finally, a building
permit had been let to start renovations on the burnt out building
which had been recently acquired by a new owner.
As astonishing as these facts may seem in light of the
apparent sentiment expressed at the community meetings and seeming
difficulty of excluding parties with such strong interests from
the participatory process, they were no fabrication of the school
building bureaucracy.
RESOLUTION.
In June of 1971 the third and final public
meeting concerning the selection of a site for the Margaret Fuller
School Replacement was held in the auditorium of the Theodore
Roosevelt School in Jamaica Plain.
Not surprisingly, the atten-
dance at this meeting was-larger than at any previous meeting.
Usually, attendance declines from one meeting to the next as
community people get tired of the long planning process.
However,
the new publicity methods had worked and many persons previously
130
uninvolved were now anxious to exnress their viewpoints.
Among those present were the owners of the businesses on Washington Street, residents and abutters of both sites, and a
contingent of about a half dozen Ukranian-Americans concerned
with the future of their building.
A presentation of the site alternatives was made by the
Public Facilities Department. Before opening the meeting to
comments and questions, the representatives of the Educational
Planning Center and Public Facilities Department made an effort
to thank the president of the Home and School Association and
her husband for their efforts and to praise them for their work
in organization and research in the community.
This was
of course done to pave the way for an easier reversal of their
position without embarassment.
The community reaction was clear.
Although a large number
of persons still favored the Franklin Park site, most people felt that
the added delays were not worth the trouble.
Parents with chil-
dren above the first grade level would not get to send those children to a new school if that school were built on the park
site.
Moreover, a number of Spanish-speaking and Black people
previously uninvolved made it clear that their value system did
not place such priority on a suburban image site but favored
131
speedy implimentation of any program which could benefit
their children's education. The president of the Home and School
Association graciously bowed to the sentiment of the gathering
stating that she could not support the long delays and that
I
when she and her husband had done their initial research into
the sites the problems of underground utilities and special
legislation were unidentified to them as lay people.
Her husband,
having represented himself as an architectural professional to the
community had a more difficult time of making this reversal and
later stated privately that he felt that the City had been unfair
in surpressing the desires of the community.
The meeting was not without its compromises.
From the
Northwest corner of the Washington Street site to the southeast
corner of the Franklin Park site was only about three hundred
yards, although, as one community person noted, the difference
in environment from industrial to rural was such that the distance could have well been over a mile.
At the urging of some
members of the community to provide some continuity of the school
site with the less industrial portions of the neighborhood, it
was agreed that four houses to the west of the Washington Street
site would be acquired and their land added to the school site.
This would give the school a major access from one of the more
132
pleasant treelined streets in the neighborhood and allow
it
to
turn its back on the industrial area.
Subsequent to the meeting the Washington Street site, modit
fied to include the additional land to the west, was officially
selected by the Public Facilities Commission as the site of the
new school.
As of this writing land acquisition is in progress
and contractual negotiations with a noted Boston architectural
firm are underway.
ANALYSIS. This case study is significant insofar as it
demonstrates how the motivations of community leadership are not
always simple nor the use of political intrigue limited to the
bureaucracy.
Ihfretrospect it becomes clear that the president of
the Home and School Association and her husband were using this
new school issue as a tool to build their prestige within their
community and as a method to reassure themselves of the middleclass suburban nature of their neighborhood in view of the
incursions by lower income people from the Model Cities areas
to the north.
In addition, the husband, having seen the pro-
fessional advocates address the highway issue in the neighborhood,
was using his role as self-appointed advocate architect to bolster
his own self-image.
Neither of these people should be condemned
for their actions as their conscious motivations were always in
133
the interest of the neighborhood as they conceived it. Only
the morality of attempting selective involvement in the guise of
community participation can be questioned and it would be false
to assert that the bureaucracy has not been guilty of similar
offenses in advocating for its concept of community interest
from time to time.
As both the Model Cities Agency and the Home and School
Association are community based and run agencies, it would
seem reasonable to assume that they would be ideal organizing
tools in gaining citizen participation in the school planning
process.
This case study shows how such naive belief by the
bureaucracy in honest search for community involvement can lead
to extreme problems.
However, time, money and staffing limita-
tions usually prohibit agencies such as the Public Facilities
Department and the Educational Planning Center from undertaking
independent community organizing efforts.
Even if such efforts
could be made in every instance, their very independence from
established community organizations would give them a stigma
of illegitimacy.
Therefore, community organizing efforts usually
fall somewhere between the two extremes of complete independence
and complete dependency.
It is the professional judgment of the
school building bureaucracy which makes the decision as to what
specific actions should be taken in a given neighborhood. This
case study shows how those judgments can sometime be in error.
134
Although the bureaucracy makes every reasonable effort to
keep an open mind in situations such as the Margaret Fuller site
selection, past experience usually indicates which site will be
most advantageous long before the community is aware of the facts
which lead to that opinion.
In the case of the Franklin Park site,
the professional planners could logically assume that underground
utilities would pose a construction problem. However, the community
wanted the specifics of what utilities and it is not incorrect to
state that the professionals were as surprised as the community
in discovering the shear magnitude of the telephone and water
main conduits.
This is not to say that the community should not
demand as much factual material as possible; it is merely to indicate that if the facts bear out the professionals' assumptions it
is difficult to convince the community that the facts were not
"created" to justify an a priori decision by the bureaucracy.
Despite every attempt by the professionals to create an image
of neutrality, it is all but impossible to conceal professional
opinions once they have begun to be formed.
In effect, the pro-
fessional, being human, always tends to lean one way or the other
in presenting the alternatives to the community and in so doing
exposes the bureaucracy to the beginnings of community doubt.
The Margaret Fuller case is particularly significant in this
respect. Although the Public Facilities Department made every
135
effort to allow the community to make a logical decision and
thereby justify its apparent reversal, there will always be
a certain sense of defeat on the part of some members of the
community and a reinforcement of the belief that one cannot fight
t
City Hall.
In the specific case of the Home and School Associa-
tion president and her husband this frustration will always
be especially strong. Nonetheless, the school planning bureaucracy made an effort to give them every opportunity to reconcile
themselves to the situation gracefully and it appears that they
will continue to participate in the design and cirriculum planning phases of the new school.
In this case study, as in each of the preceeding five case
studies, the issues and problems have been reasonably defined
and isolated. This has given the bureaucracy th.e ability to
cope with crisis situations on a sequential basis.
Such lin-
earity of the planning process is not always the case and in
the next and final case study concerning the Carter School Complex in the South End of Boston many of the issues already explored combine with additional- problems to produce a situation
wherein the very multiplicity of problems defy rational project
management.
136
CASE STUDY G
THE CARTER SCHOOL COMPLEX
137
CASE STUDY G:
THE CARTER SCHOOL COMPLEX
This seventh and final case study is included in order to
present a complex situation which demonstrates the interaction
of a large number of critical events including those which have
been illustrated in the preceeding six case studies.
The Carter
School Complex is a proposed cluster of an elementary and middle
school sharing certain common facilities and located in a poor
Black neighborhood of the South End of Boston. The project was
conceived at the time of the preparation of the South End Urban
Renewal Plan prior to 1965 and, because of a sequence of many
crisis situations, is just beginning architectural design as of
this writing at the beginning of 1972.
If reasonable progress is
made with no further interruptions of the process, which is of
course unlikely, the new facility should open at the start of the
1974 academic year. Thus, children of kindergarten age at the
time that the school was first proposed will be too old to attend
its eighth grade by the time of the school opening.
By examining
the Carter School Complex it is possible to see how crisis situations combine and interact to produce problems which often tax
the school building process beyond its limitations of effectiveness.
It is the cascading and overlapping of crises which form the core
of this final case study.
1/38
GENERAL BACKGROUND.
Of the many neighborhoods of Boston,
the South End is probably the most diverse in terms of the
ethnic and income characteristics of its residents.
Included
in the South End are Boston's Chinatown and part of the Black
ghetto which forms Roxbury to the south.
I
In between are enclaves
of Syrian, Armenian, Italian, Greek and Puerto Rican families.
During the last decade numbers of middle and upper income business and professional people have purchased and rehabilitated
nineteenth century townhouses throughout the South End, especially in the areas adjacent to the Prudential Center whose
back edge abutts the South End.
Historically, the bulk of the South End is the result of
efforts by various developers to fill the South Cove and South Bay
of Boston during the period preceeding 1870 to produce sites for
attractive brick townhouses along a formal street pattern of parks
and squares.
Through the center of the South End runs Washington
Street now shaded by an elevated transit viaduct constructed just
prior to the turn of the centory. Washington Street is the only
part of the South End which has existed from colonial times, it
having been originally the roadway linking the peninsula of Boston
to the farmlands of Roxbury. The South End appears to have been
at one time the site of expensive bow front brick buildings which
139
could have housed some of Boston's most prominent families.
This however, was not the case, the elegant buildings having
slipped directly into use as rooming houses for low-income
persons in the great depression of 1873, bankrupting most of the
developers and producing a neighborhood of poor immigrant famitlies.
In the early 1960s the South End was incorporated into an urban
renewal plan under the auspices of the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Many bitter debates and the factionalism of the diverse
ethnic and interest groups made the South End Urban Renewal
Plan one of the most controversial programs in the recent history
of the City of Boston.
The first few years of the renewal
program were marked by incendiary public hearings, picketings,
demonstrations, the occupation of the Boston Redevelopment Authority offices by various community groups and other dramatic
actions such as the take over of the United South End Settlements
building by a group of disgruntled citizens and the creation
of a "tent city" on a commercial parking lot which had been established as an interim use of a potential site for new housing.
This case study concerns itself primarily with the portion
of the South End lying at its extreme southern boundary and fading
indeterminately into the Lower Roxbury section of Boston's Black
140
ghetto.
Historically, this area had been one of the last sec-
tions of inner tity Boston to be developed, its buildings constructed from about 1890 to the beginning of World War I as
dense tenement housing for immigrant families employed in the
many industries along South Bay to the east. The neighborhood'
itself was sharply bounded by East Chester Park Street (now
Massachusetts Avenue) a maior east-west artery to the north, by
South Bay to the East, by the tracks of the Boston and Providence
Railroad to the west and open only to the Roxbury area to the
South.
Within this area were located the stables and yards of
the street railway which ran along Tremont Street from downtown
Boston and the Chickoring Piano Manufactory, built in 1852 on
part of the original unfilled land and establishing the tone of the
area as a lqcale for industry and housing for industrial workers.
At the time of its construction, the factory was the largest
building in the Americas with the exception of the United States
Capitol in Washington. The structure remains to this day as a
home for many smaller light industries and continues to overshadow
the smaller residential scale of the neighborhood.
Despite its location at the extreme southern edge of the
South End, this neighborhood contains one of the two public playgrounds serving the over 20,000 residents of the South End area.
141
This facility, the William E. Carter Playground is located along
the Boston and Providence Railroad tracks (now part of the PennCentral System) and was originally the National League Ballfield
in Boston.
The neighborhood itself, caught between the bulk
of the South End and the Lower Roxbury area, has no formal or
historical name.
For the purposes of the renewal plan and
this particular school project it has taken its name from the
playground and become known as the Carter Playground section of
the South End.
Because Massachusetts Avenue effectively severed the Carter
neighborhood from the amenities of the South End to the north,
it has drawn its supportive services from the Dudley Square area
of Roxbury to the south.
As Roxbury shifted from Jewish to Black
in population in the 1940s and 1950s, the Carter Neighborhood
experienced the same shift.
Being cut off from the more diverse
sections of the South End, this shift was almost total and
by the time the South End Urban Renewal Plan was conceived, the
Carter neighborhood contained some of the worst housing stock and
people in most need of social services of any neighborhood in
Boston.
Unlike the Roxbury area which had a reasonable number
of large homes built for blue-collar families, the Carter neighborhood had always contained only tenement housing for immigrant
142
families and thus while Roxbury attracted enough middle class
black families for some nucleus of community leadership, the
Carter neighborhood received the poorest and least self-sufficient
of the Black population in Boston.
To compound the problems of the Carter neighborhood, a major
cross-town highway, known as the innerbelt was planned along
a route which would form a barrier between the neighborhood and
its one source of some stability, Roxbury. Acquisition and
clearance was done along this route in the mid-sixties, and
although various protests and restudies have placed the future of
this highway in some doubt, a four-hundred foot wide swath of
rubble now separates the Carter neighborhood from Lower Roxbury
and Dudley Square.
The ultimate indignity to the Carter neighborhood came in,
the form of the loss of its two small and antiquated elementary
schools.
The first fell to clearance for a proposed new low-
income housing development and the second was destroyed by fire.
With only a few elementary school seats available in the nearest
elementary school in the South End, north of Massachusetts Avenue,
the school aged children of the neighborhood were and are being
bussed to the Brighton section of Boston.
143
Were it not for the efforts of the residents of the area to
demand the inclusion of new housing and schools in the South End
Urban Renewal Plan in the early 1960s, the neighborhood might
have been designated for industrial use by the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
Some of the area was designated for industrial
sites, but several hundred new units of low and moderate income
housing was included as dominant land-use element in the renewal
plan.
Because of demolition to make room for this new housing
and because of the availability of other new housing openings
in the South End and other areas of Boston, few of the people who
lived in the Carter neighborhood are still there today. The
plans made with these people are still very real, however, and
the new and continuing residents have had to find ways to adapt,
or adapt to, these plans in view of changing values and ideas.
Included in the South End Urban Renewal Plan, as approved
by the South End community through many long public hearings in the
early 1960s, was a new school to be located on a parcel designated
as PB-4 bounded by Massachusetts Avenue, the Boston and Providence
Railroad, and the Carter Playground.
PB-4 lay at the extreme
northwest corner of the Carter neighborhood and was selected as
a school site because it contained housing occupied mostly by
transients and could utilize the Carter Playground for school
144
recreational use. Moreover, as the Boston and Providence tracks
were to become the new right-of-way for the transit line presently
on the Washington Street Elevated and as the frontage on the
east-west arterial of Massachusetts Avenue would make the school
visible and accessible to the white middle-class Back Bay community
to the northwest, it was agreed that this would be the only site
which could attract a sufficient number of White children from outside the Carter neighborhood to racially integrate the school
and make it legal to construct in accord with the Massachusetts
Racial Balance Act. And so, from 1965 until 1969, the Boston
Redevelopment Authority proceeded to acquire the property on PB-4
while the construction of new housing continued throughout the
Carter neighborhood.
As a result of the acquisition and demoli-
tion for the school and the new housing the population of the
neighborhood dropped, and as the completion of the new housing
became predictable and thus the point at which the new school
would be needed became known, the Carter School Complex on parcel
PB-4 became an active project for the Public Facilities Department.
The status of the project. as of the beginning of 1969 was
that the site had been selected through the urban renewal community
planning process and that the development of an educational program
W-
145
should begin in anticipation of construction being completed
by late 1971, approximately three years later. This assumed
about a year for programming and design and two years for construction, about typical for any new school.
The first of the
new housing would be opening at about this time and the new
facility would then be ready to accomodate the children of the
new tenants.
However, when the neighborhood planning effort was
begun for programming the new facility in early 1969, it was discovered that some of the assumptions had changed and the entire
process was just beginning.
FIRST CONFLICT. When the Carter neighborhood community
was contacted concerning the start of educational programming
in early 1969, it was discovered by the Educational Planning
Center that the issue of program would not be discussed by the
neighborhood until the site selection process was reopened.
In the
intervening years since the PB-4 site was selected by the Boston
Redevelopment Authority after a number of public hearings, the
composition of the community and its values had changed.
The
housing market, in part because of demolition to make way for new
housing, had tightened considerably, and the previously undesirable
transient housing on PB-4 had become family housing which the
community desired to see rehabilitated. A group of architectural
146
students from the Community Project Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had been working with the tenants
of PB-4 to assess the rehabilitation potential of two major
apartment buildings And to prepare a report exploring the possiI
bility of funding such rehabilitation and locating the school
on another site.
The report*, titled Tenant Cooperative Housing Rehabilitation, made a concerted effort to reconcile the school with the
retention of the apartment buildings.
Unfortunately, the stu-
dents from Community Projects Laboratory, in an effort to be
responsive to the Carter community, failed to realize that the
change in designation of the PB-4 site was desirable not so much
as a correction of the Boston Redevelopment Authority plan but
rather as a reflection of changing community values.
More im-
portantly, they did not contact the Public Facilities Department
concerning school size and site standards but dealt instead with
the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the Educational Planning
Center.
Althouth the Educational Planning Center is the agency
which programs the buildings, it is the Public Facilities Department which negotiates with the Massachusetts Department of Education, School Building Assistance Bureau concerning the acceptability of a site to receive state construction aid.
Had the
*"Tenant Cooperative Housing Rehabilitation" by David Judelson,
John McCrae and Robert Yelton, Community Projects Laboratory, M.I.T.
1970
147
Community Projects Laboratory utilized current site standards
in their report, it would have been possible to translate their
recommendations for relocation of the school directly into a
new school site.
At one of the preliminary planning meetings with the
Carter community, the Community Projects Laboratory did present
their scheme.
However, they did not identify themselves suffi-
ciently and left hastily to attend another meeting.
Subsequent
attempts to contact them through Harvard and M.I.T. failed to
disclose their project or identities.
It was not until the matter
of site was substantially resolved that the Public Facilities Department obtained a copy of their report and then only after a Public
Facilities Department planner had glanced at a copy on a community
organization office desk in an entirely different neighborhood of
the South End.
He noted the names of the co-sponsoring agency,
Housing Innovations, Incorporated, and the report was tracked down
through referral by the Housing Innovations staff.
The Carter community, rejecting the PB-4 site, proposed
that the new school be located on parcel 16, a city block opposite
the Carter Playground and separated from the playground by heavily
travelled Columbus Avenue.
This site had previously been the location
148
of the Tremont Street yards of the now abandoned Tremont Street
streetcar line and its dominant use was a small building which
had been recently constructed by a trucking company for warehousing
and maintenance purposes.
It was the understanding of the truckI
ing company that it would be relocated from the site to make way
for new moderate income housing.
However, the housing developer
had shown little interest in pursuing the proposal and the community rightly felt that this site could be put to more productive
use for the new school.
Unfortunately, whereas PB-4 had been separated from the playground by a minor dead end street which could be discontinued,
the parcel 16 site was isolated from the play area by a 120-foot
wide artery. As the Urban Renewal Plan called for this artery
ultimately to be discontinued, the community suggested that it
be discontinued at once and the school constructed on parcel 16.
However, the discontinuance of Columbus Avenue depended upon the
construction of a new limited access arterial, known as the South
End Bypass, parallel to the railroad on the other edge of the
playground.
This bypass was being vigorously opposed by another
South End neighborhood to the north of the Carter neighborhood
which would lose considerable housing if the new road were built.
To further confuse the issue, the Carter community suddenly decided
149
that the concept of sharing the Carter Playground with the
school was unacceptable as the elderly, unemployed and mothers
with pre-school children used the Carter Playground during the
morning and afternoon hours.
This resulted in a proposal by
the community at a public meeting to extend the school site to
include numerous industrial buildings and abandoned apartment
buildings to the south of parcel 16 in an attempt to enlarge
parcel 16 to accomodate the school with its own outdoor physical education areas.
The Public Facilities Department explored this possibility
with the Boston Redevelopment Authority and determined that some
of that abandoned housing was already beginning rehabilitation
and that the industrial buildings provide employment for approximately 15% of the employed in the Carter neighborhood. At the
next public meeting, even before the Public Facilities Department
could present this data, the community leadership announced that
conversations with various residents had made these facts known
and that the proposal was therefore unacceptable.
Meetings were held with the Traffic Department to see if
Columbus Avenue could be closed in an attempt to combine a portion
of PB-4 with parcel 16.
Present traffic patterns clearly excluded
this possibility unless the South End Bypass were to be constructed
150
first.
Even if the bypass were acceptable to the South End, it
would take several years to obtain funding and to construct and
so this possibility was ruled out.
Yet another complication was the overriding need to comply
with the Massachusetts Racial Balance Act.
Despite a shift in
thinking in the Black community since its enactment in 1965, the
Act required that 50% of the new facility be reserved for white
students or all State aid to the entire Boston Public School System would have to be suspended.
Even though the Carter neighborhood
could easily fill every seat in the new facility and still have
need for more pupil places as a result of new housing construction,
the facility would need to accomodate white students, gathered from
wherever possible, to comply with the law.
The site selection process had reached a stalemate.
The
Carter community was adamant in its desire to utilize none of
the existing playground and to retain the apartment buildings
on PB-4.
The only solution could be an innovative and unorthodox
one as all of the conventional. solutions had failed to produce
a suitable site.
FIRST CRISIS.
The Public Facilities Department planning
staff decided to take a fresh look at the problem, disregarding
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State standards in the belief that any conflict with the htate
would take no longer to resolve than the present impasse with the
community.
The result was a set of five options:
t
The first was, of course, the originally proposed school
on PB-4 as shown in the South End Urban Renewal Plan. This was
clearly unacceptable but provided a comparison for the other schemes.
The second was the construction of a high-rise tower at one
end of parcel 16 which would occupy the minimum amount of ground
area, leaving the bulk of the site for outdoor play for the
school.
The third scheme was a school building which accomodated the
outdoor play areas on its roof and covered most of parcel 16 to
a height of two stories.
The fourth scheme proposed the location of the school
building on the areas of PB-4 not occupied by the two apartment
buildings and the utilization of Carter Playground as a school
play area.
A new public playground would be developed on Parcel
16 simultaneously to replace the existing facility.
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And, the fifth scheme was the construction of the new school
in part on air-rights over Columbus Avenue in a manner linking
Parcel 16 to PB-4 and placing school play area on the vacant
portions of both parcels, retaining the contested housing and Columbus Avenue as a through street.
These five schemes were presented to the community at a
meeting held at the United South End Settlements building in
Union Park in the South End. The community was cautioned that all
of the schemes with the exception of the first were unorthodox
and could prove unacceptable to the School Building Assistance
Bureau.
It was agreed that the unorthodox options were the only
ones open and the community threatened to picket the State Department of Education if a solution could not be found.
After much debate concerning the dangers and costs of roof
top play areas, the environment of high-rise building for an
elementary school and the distrust of the municipal promise to
replace the Carter Playground on parcel 16, it was agreed that
air-rights was the only acceptable solution.
The communi.ty was
not overly excited about air-rights construction as a positive
concept but would accept the idea as a last resort.
It was decided
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that a meeting would be held with the State Department of Education to gain approval of the concept and the site.
FIRST RESOLUTION.*
A meeting was held at the offices of
I
the Public Facilities Department to discuss the possibilities of
an air-rights solution to the problem of site selection for the
Carter School Complex.
In preparation for that meeting, a set
of slides showing air-rights facilities throughout the Boston
area was prepared by the Public Facilities Planning Staff for
presentation to the state.
It should be noted at this point that
the School Building Assistance Bureau had never approved any
public school facility on a non-contiguous site, that is, one
with a road or street separating it into two or more parcels.
Just as the State does not have a separate site standard for
dense cities as opposed to rural areas and just as the State does
not reimburse site acquisition costs due to the disparity in land
values between cities and rural areas, the State has traditionally
*In view of the fact that the proposal of an air-rights school
created a conflict between the City of Boston and the Massachusetts
Department of Education as well as a conflict within the Department
of Education between the School Building Assistance Bureau and the
Deputy Commissioner of Education charged with administering the
Racial Balance Law, there exists here yet another case study in
conflict. However, as this problem was resolved with comparative ease,
it is sufficient to note the existence of this sub-case and suggest
that it be considered as an additional example of crisis resolution
without its being presented within its own conflict-crisis-resolution
framework.
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felt that to allow the construction of a school in Boston on a
non-contiguous site would invite -small towns wishing to save
money to request approval of non-contiguous sites when better
possibilities were available.
Present at the meeting were the following persons:
I
the
Director of the Public Facilities Department, the Public Facilities
Department Advance Planning Officer, the Public Facilities Department Community Planner; the Deputy Commissioner of Education;
the Director of the School Building Assistance Bureau and his staff
planner; the Director of the Educational Planning Center and the
educational planner sho had been working on the Carter Schools
Complex; the Boston Redevelopment Authority South End Project
Manager and the community coordinator who had been involved in
the project; and, two members of the community committee concerned
with the Carter Schools.
The meeting began with a brief presentation of the background
of the project and the problems which had forced the air-rights
solution.
It was noted that this school complex would be the
second school to be built in a Black neighborhood since the inception
of the Racial Balance Act and would be a significant breakthrough
in the advancement of interracial education in Boston. The Deputy
Commissioner concurred with this and agreed that the Carter School
155
Complex was a key facility in the City of Boston plan to alleviate
racial imbalance. The reaction of the Director of the School
Building Assistance Bureau was negative in view of the facts
outlined above.
t
The slides of air-rights facilities were presented to the
group.
Included were views of a supermarket over the Massachusetts
Turnpike, the Prudential Center, the plans for the new Outpatient
Department at Boston City Hospital, the portion of the Jordan
Marsh Department Store which spans a street in downtown Boston,
and finally, the Massachusetts State Capitol Building which spans
Mt. Vernon Street on Beacon Hill.
Wherever possible views of the
interiors of these buildings were shown prior to views of the airrights conditions demonstrating how the air-rights configuration
was not at all obvious to the occupants of the buildings.
It was explained that although no elementary schools had been
constructed in the United States utilizing an air-rights design,
the placement of common facilities such as cafeteria, auditorium,
administrative offices and gymnasium in the air-rights portion of
the proposed school would keep a conventional ground level relationship with the outdoors in the classroom sections of the proposed
facility.
The Educational Planning Center representatives expressed
156
their professional opinion that there was nothing in this
scheme which would limit the functioning of this facility in terms
of educational program.
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Despite some skepticism by the Director of the School Building Assistance Bureau that an air-rights elementary school was
an unknown situation for the State to invest its funds in, the
Deputy Commissioner of Education made a brief statement that he could
not be opposed to educational innovation, especially in view of
the evidence shown in the slide presentation.
The Director of
Public Facilities was quick to add that Boston had engaged in a
number of innovative facility designs including a multi-million
dollar high-rise high school building under construction.
As
a result of these comments, especially the remarks by the Deputy
Commissioner, the Director of School Building Assistance agreed
that the air rights concept would be acceptable with the provision
that some additional site were acquired to the south of parcel 16
to bring the site size closer to State standards.
The Boston Re-
development Authority Project Manager agreed that this was possible and the meeting was cordially adjourned.
The community repre-
sentatives, never shy and often militant, had spoken not a word
save introductions at the meeting.
The City had represented their
l7
interests successfully and their reserve potential of community
pressure did not have to be called upon.
Following the meeting with the State Department of Education,
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the interest of the community in site selection had been met and
the process would appear complete.
However, on the day-following
the meeting, the Boston Redevelopment Authority Project Manager
telephoned the Public Facilities Department to explain that the additional land to the south of Parcel 16 included a building which
had just begun rennovation. This building could not be included in the school site despite his verbal commitment at the
meeting on the preceeding day.
Although the exclusion of this
piece of the site reduced the total utility of Parcel 16 in
laying out playfields, it was agreed that little could be done and
the site boundary map was transmitted to the School Building Assistance Bureau without mention of the change in the hope that the
verbal description had been sufficiently vague to allow this modification.
Fortunately, it was and the site was tentatively approved
in a letter from the School Building Assistance Bureau several weeks
later.
In addition to the building which was under rehabilitation, a
row of about six buildings were now included in the school site
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which had not been scheduled for acquisition under the South End
Urban Renewal Plan.
As the renewal plan is in effect a contract
between the City, acting through the Redevelopment Authority,
and the property owners of the area that eminent domain will
t
not be used except in accord with the plan for a period of forty
years following the adoption of the plan, the acquisition of these
buildings could only be accomplished by amendment of the plan,
failure of the owners to rehabilitate in accord with the plan, or
voluntary sale to the city by the owners.
State law prohibits
the City from purchasing property for amounts greater than an
amount based upon an average assessment on the property during
the preceeding three years. This statute is intended to prevent
unscrupulous dealings between municipal officials and property
owners, but, because of a low ratio of assessment to actual
values, the result in Boston is that negotiated purchases are
rarely used, the process instead taking the form of an amicable
eminent domain taking where appraisals are used to determine fair
market value.
Unfortunately, eminent domain could not be used in
the renewal area without a default on the part of the owners or
an amendment of the renewal plan.
The Boston Redevelopment Authority,
claiming that the Department of Housing and Urban Development was
granting no supplemental funds for plan changes and that all existing
funds were encumbered, refused to amend the plan or declare defaults.
159
Letters from the owners of the buildings were obtained by the
Public Facilities Department stating that the owners had no
intention of rehabilitating in accord with the plan and requesting that the City acquire the properties.
Despite these
letters, it was over a year before the City's Corporation Counsel would assent to the Public Facilities Commission making the
takings in the renewal area with its own funds.
SECOND CONFLICT.
While the issue of site had been un-
resolved, the construction of the new housing in the Carter
neighborhood continued.
No sooner was the site for the school
agreed upon, than the community requested the City to construct
some sort of temporary school facility to accomodate the lower grade
children of-families who would be moving into the neighborhood
prior to the completion of the new school.
As such temporary
facilities receive no State aid, and, because of their short
life must be financed out of direct tax revenues, the Public
Facilities Department was reluctant to pursue this course of
action. The Educational Planning Center felt that the children
moving into the new housing could be accomodated by bussing to
other parts of the city during the interim preceeding the completion of the new school.
However, as the community was reluc-
tant to cooperate in the programming effort unless the Educational
160
Planning Center recommended a temporary facility, the Planning
Center sent a written request to Public Facilities Department
expressing a desire to have space in the neighborhood at least
for kindergarten, first and second grade pupils from the new
housing.
This request would have normally been placed on a low
priority in view of the many more pressing needs throughout the
city which do not have alternate solutions such as the interim
bussing possible in the Carter neighborhood.
However, as delays
in programming would probably be as costly as the provision
of interim facilities and as postponing the construction of the new
school pending a resolution of the temporary facility issue would
only allow time for even more families to move into the neighborhood,
it was decided by the Public Facilities Department that space would
be found.
The first explorations were directed toward existing spaces
in the community which could be leased by the City of Boston for
the interim.
Negotiations were conducted with the developers of
the new housing in the hope that several units could be converted
to classroom space prior to the partitioning of these units into
apartments.
Under the terms of the Federal funding involved,
these units could only be made available for one year before the
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housing would have to be used solely as housing.
One developer
had some commercial space under design but leasing of it would
not be possible until its completion and that would require two
interim solutions instead of one.
Investigations were made of some
I
space in the basement of a local church but the building did not
meet the public safety laws for elementary school facilities.
The
possibility of leasing one large open floor of a fireproof industrial building was explored.
Despite the fact that the space
was on the fifth floor and would require the use of elevators
for the children to get to and from their classroom area, the
State Department of Education was agreeable to this interim
solution.
However, the community was not agreeable in part be-
cause of the elevator situation and in part because the idea of
sending chil-dren to an industrial building was not considered
desirable.
It is curious to note that the community had endorsed
the church basement which was panelled with a highly-flammable
plywood veneer panelfing and had inadequate egress but would not
accept a large open floor in a concrete and steel warehouse
building because of the "fire safety" of a fifth floor location.
Obviously, the only solution would be construction of a
facility specifically for the temporary school.
In the hope of
putting some of the capital investment to permanent use, the
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Public Facilities Department examined a vacant row house in
an attempt to remodel it as a school with the possibility of it
becoming housing at a later date. Unfortunately, safety requirements would have required extensive renovation, the cost of which
was greater than new construction.
Several years earlier the Public Facilities Department had
constructed two small temporary buildings of six classrooms
each at Dorchester High School.
It was found that these cinder-
block buildings were less expensive than so called portable or demountable prefabricated facilities.
Therefore, it was decided to
modify the Dorchester design to accomodate four elementary school
classrooms in each building and to request that the Boston Redevelopment'Authority make available a site large enough to accomodate these buildings.
The first site .proposed by the Boston Redevelopment Authority
was a portion of a proposed new park to the southwest of the
Carter Playground known as the proposed Ball Street Playground in the
South End Urban Renewal Plan.
A tower for housing the elderly
was under construction at one edge of this proposed park and it
was felt that the temporary school buildings could be converted
into a recreational facility for the elderly upon their being vacated by the school department.
163
This proposal was made to the community and was rejected
abruptly. The only comments which could be elicitied at the
community meeting were to the effect that there would be no school
at Ball Street and that the issue would not even be discussed.
I
A subsequent investigation by the Educational Planning Center revealed that there was a permanent school shown in the urban renewal
plan on a site abutting the proposed Ball Street Playground.
Prior
to the enactment of the Massachusetts Racial Balance Law, the NAACP
had lead an effort in the community to stop the construction of
this school in the knowledge that because of its location in would
open as a racially segregated school.
present values
Despite the fact that the
of the community were in favor of Black neigh-
borhood schools for Black neighborhood children, the memory of
a hard won victory against the Boston School Department in the
early 1960s precluded even the discussion of Ball Street as a
site for any sort of school facility.
Paradoxicly, almost no
community people could remember the issue involved in the early
Ball Street debate but only that the community had achieved a
victory. That the.use of the Ball Street Playground as a temporary
school site was seen by the community as a maneuver by the municipal bureaucracy to thwart community desires.
About a block to the north of Ball Street playground, the
Boston Redevelopment Authority had cleared two small parcels on
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either side of Arnold Street, a street being closed for new
housing construction. The community toured this site, fronting
on Shawmut Avenue for several hundred feet on either side of
the Arnold Street intersection and agreed that it would be an
agreeable solution. The south boundary of the site was only about
seventy-five feet from Ball Street but as the site never touched
Ball Street it was considered acceptable.
The Public Facilities
Department assigned its engineering staff to modify the Dorchester
buildings to fit this linear site along Shawmut Avenue at Arnold
Street.
The configuration of the site was such that one of the temporary buildings would be located in part on what was Arnold Street.
After modifying the building plans and showing them to the community with favorable response, it was discovered that the Boston
Redevelopment Authority had not relocated all of the families out
of adjacent buildings on Arnold Street.
Although the site
itself was clear and Arnold Street could be closed to traffic
where it would become part of the school buildings, a sewer line
serving the other apartment buildings on the street would have
to remain.
In order to build over this sewer line, the design
of the temporary buildings would have to be considerably changed
and the sewer line reinforced.
This would mean extensive delays
165
and when the community was informed of the situation, their interpretation was that the sewer line was merely another attempt
by the City to thwart the community.
SECOND CRISIS. At that point, the Carter School parents
committee angrily marched into the offices of the Public Facilities
Department to demand action. A meeting was held with the Director
of Public Facilities and the various alternative were examined.
The
community suggested that the temporary buildings should be constructed on the agreed site of the permanent school.
It was explained
that as the design of the permanent school was unknown, it would
be impossible to place these buildings in a position where they
could not interfere with the construction of the new facility.
On the issues of the temporary and permanent facilities, many
of the community people seemed confused.
Despite the fact that
the temporary buildings would accomodate about 200 children with
no supportive facilities and would cost about $250,000 while the
permanent buildings would house 1,450 pupils, provide gymnasium,
cafeteria, auditorium, library and community facilities at a
cost of over eight million dollars, the two buildings seemed to
be somewhat interchangeable in the thinking of the community.
Some members of the community feared that the temporary building
was a cheap substitute by the City for the permanent facility.
166
Others felt that only by the construction of a building at once
could the neighborhood be guaranteed of any school at all.
At this meeting was producing little in the way of
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progress on the matter, the Public Facilities Department staff
decided to give the community a clear commitment concerning the
building and site in a dramatic manner at the meeting. A letter
was prepared, in the presence of the community people, stating
simply that the Public Facilities Department would construct a
temporary school facility on any site in the City of Boston provided
that the site was of specific dimensions (given in the letter),
was cleared and available through the Boston Redevelopment Authority,
did not interfere with the construction of any immediately planned
facility and had no unusual subsurface conditions which would prevent the rapid construction of the temporary building.
The commun-
ity was further invited, in the letter, to consult with any registered engineer that they chose to verify any subsurface problems which
the City might claim to exist.
As a further statement of good faith, the Public Facilities
Department offered to place the temporary buildings on the portion of the permanent site which could possibly be included in
the proposed South End Bypass.
It was recognized that the un-
167
certainty of the bypass would prohibit the long term investment
of the permanent school building on that portion of the site but
would guarantee the availability of thAt area for at least four
years while the permanent school was beina built.
SECOND RESOLUTION.
Despite the fact that the community was
demanding definite and immediate action at that meeting with the
Public Facilities Department, the same community refused to
make any agreements pending discussion of the matter in the neighborhood.
The result was a letter from the chairman of the parents'
committee about a week later agreeing to the siting of the temporary school on the portion of the permanent site subject to uncertainty from the South End Bypass.
Contracts and designs were
prepared and the building was started using an incentive system
of bonuses to assure that the contractor would have the facility
complete by the opening of school in the Fall.
It normally takes about four to six weeks to process a construction contract, and the community called yet another public
meeting to protest the apparent lack of progress on the site.
When the Public Facilities Department was criticised at this
meeting, the community people were invited to walk from the meeting
room to the school site, about five blocks away.
Needless to say,
they were surprised to discover that in the period since their
168
preceeding meeting two weeks earlier, the contractor had started
work and the exterior of the school building was approximately
50% complete.
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THIRD CONFLICT.
Following the start of construction of the
temporary facility, the process of programming the new school
finally began in ernest. The community people participating in
the programing process conceived the new school as a facility
which should contain every possible amenity which could be
found in the white community.
Time and time again the sentiment
was expressed that if some other school had something, the Carter school should have it as well.
A program was developed which
included not only the elementary and middle school classroom
clusters and media center, but also an auditorium, cafeteria,
community room, meeting rooms, gymnasium, locker and shower
facilities, and swimming pool.
The planner from the Educational Planning Center cautioned
that although these facilities should all be included at this
stage, it was important to realize that the Boston School Department has to evaluate the program in view of the operating and
construction cost as well as the availability of facilities
throughout the school system.
The draft of the community program
document was transmitted to the Superintendent of Schools for
169
evaluation and approval by the various divisions of the School
Department.
Following the approval of the program by the Superintendent
I
with what the School Department referred to as minor revisions,
the Public Facilities Department contracted with Architectural
Programming Associates, Incorporated to translate the program
into a set of specific educational specifications which an
architect could utilize in the design of the building.
Such
educational specifications ennumerate each space in the building
as to size, equipment, special needs, relationship to other
spaces and so forth.
Upon the completion of the Educational Specifications, a
meeting was held with the community to present the new document
and to introduce the architect for the new school.
The archi-
tect was well received by the community and he explained how this
meeting was merely for him to get an idea of priorities in the
community and that it would be several months before he would even
start drawing, having to evaluate and understand the program and
educational specifications.
The first problem to arise was the size of the auditorium.
The educational specification showed the auditorium to seat about
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three hundred.
The community felt that the auditorium should
seat the entire fourteen hundred and fifty students of the two
schools.
Recognizing the problem, the architect explained that
bigger was not necessarily better and that young children would
be overwhelmed by a space large enough to accomodate the entire
school.
His arguments were convincing and tended to satisfy the
community so some degree.
However, were it not for the issue
of the swimming pool, the auditorium probably would have become
a crisis issue, if not at that meeting, over the course of the
next few days while the community pondered on its significance.
THIRD CRISIS.
To the surprise of the community, the swim-
ming pool had been dropped from the educational specifications.
Outraged inquiries yielded the information that the swimming pool
had been excluded from the program by the School.Department. As
a new pool was being built in another elementary school in the
South End less than a mile from the Carter site, it was the belief of the School Department that an adequate physical education
program involving swimming for both schools could be run utilizing
the one pool.
At this point a crisis clearly existed in the point of view
of both the community and the bureaucracy.
However, the community
took no immediate action other than a few letters of protest.
It
171
appears that as this problem had become apparent in June, it
would be difficult for the community to organize over the summer
vacation months and by keeping the crisis simmering, the leadership could use it as an organizational tool in the Fall.
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In early September the community leadership and a few members of the community at large met with the Director of Public
Facilities to demand the swimming pool.
They were shown a map
which indicated pools or planned pools in several locations near
to the Carter site.
They countered this argument by evaluating
each pool and demonstrating how they felt that these facilities
were all utilized by other groups or communities.
Their orienta-
tion appeared to be more toward the pool as a community resource
than as part of the educational facility.
The Director of Public
Facilities agreed to study the matter further, considering the
community arguments.
It should be noted that although the School Department approves
the program, it is the Public Facilities Department which prepares
the educational specifications and can control the inclusion of such
facilities unless directly disapproved by the Superintendent of
Schools, in which case the Massachusetts Department of Education
arbitrates.
For this reason, it would have been possible for the
172
Public Facilities Department to take a position on the matter
almost immediately.
However, September was the time of the primary election for
Mayor and pending the results of the primary, the incumbent
might find it desirable to be seen as directing his Public
Facilities Department to include the pool just prior to the final
election in November. As it turned out, the candidate opposing
the incumbent in the final election had little chance for support
in the Black community and therefore the arbitrary announcement
of the inclusion of the pool was avoided while Public Facilities
Department continued to study the availability of resources.
THIRD RESOLUTION.
As the matter of the pool had reached
a standoff with the community leadership convinced that they
would win their point and realizing that the issue could keep the
community together until the start of architectural design, the
City continued to leave the status of the pool unresolved for
fear that its resolution would only provide an opportunity for
other problems to surface.
Of.course, architectural design cannot
begin in ernest nor drawings be shown to the community without
the prior resolution of what is officially included in the new
building.
173
As of this writing at the beginning of 1972, the architect
has started developing some schemes for the site development
and specific external parameters of the school complex.
A
letter has been prepared, although not sent, explaining the
situation and agreeing to the inclusion of the swimming pool.
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Soon the community will meet to review the site plan schemes
and shortly thereafter the matter of the pool will be resolved.
If the program has been properly prepared and if the distortions and compromises inherent in the process are comparatively
minor, the community should have little problem with the architectural design process.
Hopefully, their energies will be di-
verted to working with the School Department in establishing
curriculum and programs for the new building.
However, there
is no guarantee that this will be the case and it is possible that
still other crises will emerge over specifics of the design.
Such
has been the case at the Quincy School project in the Chinatown
area of the South End where the design has been progressing slowly
for almost three years as the community committee insists in
involvement in each detail of the process.
It will be unfortunate
if this happens at the Carter School Complex because it will
further delay the project and possibly require a repetition of
the temporary school crisis as the immediate need for school space
174
increases in the neighborhood.
ANALYSIS. This case study includes pathologies common
to the preceeding six case studies such as conflicting community
goals, internal bureaucratic conflict, adaptation to new ideas
concerning school construction, problems created by strategies
of community leadership, an unwieldy process and external problems of elected officials.
The case study contributes an addi-
tional problem in the continuing paranoia of the community for the
bureaucracy, particularly this Black community for the White
bureaucracy.
Significantly, the case study does demonstrate that the
community tends to engage in only one crisis at a time with the
conflict situations sometimes overlapping and making perceptions
of incipient crises difficult.
Moreover, difficulties in main-
taining a constantly high level of community interest throughout
the processes become apparent as the ability to prolong a crisis
by either the community leadership or the bureaucracy develops
during the third crisis situation.
Even though the prolonged crisis
does maintain a moderate level of community interest, the incendiary
situations common to most sporadic crisis situations was completely
missing after the start of the swimming pool crisis, with both camps
175
seemingly recognizing the artificiallity of the situation.
The real potential conflict in the last situation lies
in the frustrations of the community in not seeing the permat
nent school start design and construction. As few of the
participants in the community have been involved since the
beginning due to the shift in housing patterns, this frustration is probably not as great as it would be in a stable
neighborhood.
In the case of the Quincy School where the
community leadership has been promoting a long series of minor
crises, the majority of the community have become disinterested
and resigned to the lengthy process which is preventing the
completion of their school.
Al
In the final analysis of the seven case studies, an attempt will be made to construct a model which simulates the
behavior of the varipus actors in a crisis situation and by
combining that model with techniques for limiting the occurence
of crises such as the one crisis at a time rule, some strategies for expediting the process will be proposed.
176
ANALYSIS
177
ANALYSIS
The preceding seven case studies have provided examples of some
of the varying pathologies of crisis situations in the school bLkilding process.
In each of these situations, the various actors behaved
in a manner which they felt would alter or maintain the process outcome in a form which would best suit their ends.
In each situation
it would appear superficially that this limited objective of outcome control is the only rationale which exists in the process.
Gen-
erally, it is the only rationale of which the actors are aware.
For
the most part strategies are and appear to be ad hoc responses in
specific situations.
Nonetheless, a careful examination of the data shows that there
are certain general parameters which seem to apply in almost all situations.
Most obvious of these parameters is that the existence of
one crisis is resolved.
Another parameter of crises is that crises
always happen on the trailing edge of a step in the process.
That is,
crises happen immediately following a decision and prevent the project
from passing into the next decision-making step until the crisis is
resolved.
If there are contemporaneous decision-making steps, the one
crisis rule still holds, with the crisis concerning only one of the
178
contemporaneous decisions and the others escaping scrutiny by the
crisis-concerned actors.
A PROCESS MODEL.
In order for these parametric observations to tbe
of any value in understanding and controlling the process, it is
necessary to construct a simple model of the process itself.
As
designed by legislation and bureaucratic convention, the school
process may be described as a basically linear and axially symmetrical
process.
This process may be described as a straight or essentially
straight line starting at a point, the beginning, and terminating in
contact with some concave multi-dimensional surface at another point,
the outcome.
At any point along the process line, a plane perpendicular
to that line describes the possible output as that area of the multidimensional surface lying on the same side of that plane as the portion
of the process line as yet uncompleted.
Figure 1 shows a simplified
two dimensional representation of this model wherein the process, line
carries with it a perpendicular line which in turn intersects some
curve defining the outcome. The effect, of course, is that the position of possible outcome points is constantly being delimited until
the process line meets the outcome curve or surface, at which time
the process is complete and the outcome is one unique and specific
point.
179
As the time to complete the process is proportional to the
length of the process line, the predetermination of the outcome
point is essential to the minimization of time from beginning to
end of the process.
This, in effect, means that any modification of
the direction of the process line in order to alter the outcome of
the process distorts the line into a curve, increases its length
and hence increasing the time to completion of the process.
The linearity of the process is implicit in the stated goals of
the legislation and the bureaucracy.
By attempting to minimize the
time from inception to completion of a school facility, the design
and specification of the process.
Furthermore, if this minimization
of time is the primary goal, then the process is not intended to
modify the outcome through a refinement process as alleged by the
bureaucracy, but is merely to provide a structurewherein the process
can be arrested at various points if the outcome appears to be irreconcilable with the goals of any of the actors.
It may be argued that there is no basic difference between the
situation wherein the process is halted and realigned and the situation
wherein the process is undergoing constant refinement.
This arguement
follows from the premise that the process line is made up from an
180
infinite number of points, any one of which may be used to force a
realignment of the process.
In reality, however, these multi-
tudinous points become aggregated into continuous segments with only
the leading and following tangents visible to all of the actors.,
These segments, not the points, are the activities in the process
described by statute and convention and are shown represented in Figure
2.
The points hidden within these segments are the multitude of
minor internal bureaucratic decisions which are usually invisible to
all of the actors outside of the actor or agency charged with making
the decision.
Extending this concept of discreet segments, it can be
seen that the visible points between segments are the only opportunity
actors outside of the decision making entity have to modify the
resultant process alignment and hence the limitation of crisis situations to the trailing edge of a bureaucratic step.
In the case of contemporaneous decisions, the output alignment
of .the several decisions combine upon entry to the next segment, producing a new alignment which is both invisible and impossible to
evaluate until the completion of the next step.
This, in effect, is
a coding of the output of a step into several lesser outputs with the
181
effect of obscuring the actual effect on the total process outcome
until the completion of some later step. Although this operation
tends to avoid a crisis point through ambiguity or to precipitate
a crisis which may be based upon an actor's misinterpretation of
the complex output, it also prevents any actor or agency other than
ones which participates in both the preceeding and following steps
to have any knowledge of the possible final outcomes which are
possible as a result of that stage of the process.
The significance of this contemporaneous decision-making strategy
is that it often produces a set of outputs which deceive actors in
the process into believing that one of the contemporaneous decisions
has excluded their desired final output from the possible outputs
still described on the output curve of the model.
To the actors
who do not recognize the segmental nature of the process, the simplistic
continuous line time minimization model gives further reinforcement
to the spurious interpretation of partial output. This reinforcement
is the result of the fact that in the continuous line model modification of the output of an activity is difficult except at the point in
the process which is identified as that activity.
That is to say, if
an output appears which.is unacceptable to an actor, that actor must
make every effort to modify that output immediately as it is impossible
182
to make modifications that expand rather than reduce the possible
final output or output set.
In the continuous line model the accept-
ance of the output at any stage precludes expansion of the output set
without looping back along the process line and hence departing tfrom
the time minimization objective in the recognition that such looping
is the only way in which all subsequent output sets will not have to
be included in the preceeding sets.
This misinterpretation of partial outputs from contemporaneous
decisions is not restricted to any single type of actor, bureaucrat
or community.
Very often decisions of major importance are made whose
implications are not realized until much later when modification of
those decisions is impossible due to the need for extreme looping back
in the process.
Conversely, partial outputs can be related to issues
so sensitive as to precipitate crises over matters which are in
reality unresolved.
An
example of this sort of partial output would have been seen
in the case of obtaining state approval for the air-rights solution as
examined in the final case study.
Had the sections of the Massachusetts
Department of Education -been contacted separately, neither of their
conflicting first opinions concerning the practicality of air-rights
would have been sufficient to indicate the fate of the scheme.
However
183
had the community received solely the negative opinion of the School
Building Assistance Bureau, there was a high probability that their
threat to picket the Department of Education would have been carried
out.
On the other hand, by combining the usual steps of approvatls
by the School Building Assistance Bureau and the Racial Balance
administrators into a single operation along with the usual negotiations between the two entities, the parallel decisions and subsequent
combination were included in a single step.
Figure 3 illustrates this
type of system behavior.
CRISIS BEHAVIOR.
It would be simple if this model led directly
to the conclusion that time minimization and responsiveness to all
demands upon the process could be obtained by allowing all actors,
community and bureaucratic, to participate at each and every point on
the process line as in the continuous line model.
Disregarding problems
of mutually exclusive goals, this type of total involvement over a
time period lasting months and years is impossible to obtain from
every actor.
Sensitivity sessions, encounter groups, and the recent
"charrettes" sponsored by the United States Office of Education wherein
all the actors are locked in a room and do not emerge until a solution
is produced do not translate easily into the prosaic operations of
research and data collection and especially involvement of thousands
184
of individuals within bureaucracy and the community.
Therefore,
actors tend to limit their involvement to points in the process where
they perceive their individual interests to be at stake.
In the case of the bureaucracy, this type of bahavior is
institutionalized into a set of approvals by various agencies charged
representing specific interests which must be included in the final
outcome.
The total bureaucracy is continuous over time and hence
commitments made in order to obtain approvals early in the process are
continued as fixed criteria to the outcome.
The community, however,
has an entirely different manner of coping with involvement at points
of community significance.
Community interest is so broad that it is
virtually impossible to delimit it to any specific point of entry as
is attempted in the site selection and programming processes as presently conceived by the bureaucracy.
Difficulties of bureaucracy-community interface stem from two
major structural differences between the two entities.
While the
bureaucracy is constant or reasonably constant over time in its concerns
and the roles of its actors, the community is constantly changing in
values, goals, composition, concerns, aspirations and interests.
And,
while the bureaucratic actors have specific legitimate spokesmen such
as officials and administrators, the community has no such structure
185
and every citizen has the right to express a unique opinion on every
issue.
The potential for chaos in this situation is reduced by community
apathy and the logistics of numbers.
Apathy limits community involve-
ment to points in the process wherein the community member percieves
his interests to be jeopardized beyond some unspecified threshold.
The logistics of numbers limits citizen participation to a great
degree to participation through ongoing groups as the sheer size and
diversity of bureaucratic operations make it impossible for any single
individual to involve himself in all decisions affecting his life.
These two delimiting factors of apathy and logistics tend to
make community involvement most likely at crisis points in the school
building process. The effect of these factors on bureaucratic actors
is.similar but because their interests are much more specific than the
general
interests of the community, the result is that bureaucratic
crises tend to happen only occasionally in instances such as the
Edward Everett School Annex discussed in the third case study.
This problem of bureaucratic-community interface is so crucial
to the process that it is surprising that it is so little understood
by the participants.
Despite the fact that community involvement
186
comes time and time again in the form of crisis situations, it is
usually perceived as a specific problem of public relations by
the bureaucracy or bureaucratic malfeasance by the community rather
than an unavoidable situation endemic to the structure of the two
entities.
Therefore, any attempt to avoid community-bureaucratic crisis
must either take the form of the sensitivity session model or place
the community in a position where interaction is completely impossible,
thus precluding crises.
As the former solution appears unworkable
and the latter solution unethical, if not
then the most productive course
ultimately impossible,
of action is to attempt to understand
crisis interaction and exploit whatever virtues it may have.
A CRISIS MODEL.
Returning to the system model which describes
the process as a curve composed of discreet segments wherein the
trailing edge of each segment marks a point where the process outcome
set is delimited, it is possible to establish a model of crisis
behavior which is generally applicable to all of the actors in the
process.
At this point, it is helpful to review the working definitions
187
of conflict, crisis and resolution proposed i-n the introduction.
"Conflict" is considered the situation wherein the desired outcomes
of two or more actors are disparate but both are included within
the possible outcome set.
A "crisis" situation exists when the i
outcome set is changed to exclude the desired outcome of one or
more of these actors.
"Resolution" occurs when the excluded actor
abandons his previously desired outcome for one included in the delimited set or the outcome set is changed again to reinstate the
excluded goal.
Which of the two courses of resolution is achieved in a conflict
situation is therefore the deciding factor in the modification of the
output set.
As was noted in the introduction, crises often exist
which are resolved by spontaneous alteration of the acceptable outcome
of the actor who has been excluded from the outcome set.
These in-
visible crises are significant only so much as their existance,
demonstrated by statements such as "you can't fight City Hall", is
indicative of some form of overt crisis aversion which takes place
in the majority of decision-making events.
That is to say, as
crises exist overtly only in a few instances in every major project
although opportunities for crises may number in the hundreds, some
mechanism other than conscious action to avoid crisis must be in
effect in order to restrict unresolved conflict to statements of
188
frustration.
Moreover, this sort of spontaneous resolution is not
restricted to the community but is apparent in the various interagency relations and even in personal relationships within specific
agencies.
It may be asked why do not all incipient crises reach an overt
crisis situation, and is there any rational structure, conscious or
unconscious, on the part of the actors which determines crises versus
non-crisis situations. An evaluation of the behavior of the process
model under crisis situations gives some indication of perceivable
criteria which can be used to measure the probability of crisis occurence in any given situation assuming adequate data concerning the
aspirations of both conflicting actors are reasonably ascertained and
that some future prediction of the course of the process is accessable to the actors involved.
One primary assumption in this model is that both actors agree
that the completion of the process is the the goal and that without
the completion of the process all other issues are meaningless.
equally important condition is the time urgency which both actors
feel.
In the case of the community versus the bureaucracy, the
community desires the school for its children before they are too
old to attend it or before conditions change which will make the
An
189
school no longer significant to their needs (such as a changing
community value structure which may disenfranchise the present
residents unless the decisions concerning the school are made
rapidly).
Similarly, the bureaucracy is faced with the problem of
providing adequate educational facilities both in size and quality
under pressure from statute and other regulatory agencies and the
longer the process is extended the more difficult it is to accomplish this end in view of inflation decreasing effective budgets and
obsolescence of early planning decisions.
A CRISIS MODEL.
Constructing a time-economic model of the crisis
situation, it can then be reasonable asserted that time to completion
(or failure to complete) is the prime measurement which the actors
use in determining their actions in a crisis situation.
Exam-
ination of the seven case studies shows that in all of the cases the
various crisis actors were in some way concerned with project completion time or the limit condition of abandonment wherein completion
time approaches infinity.
Utilizing this parameter, the behavior of
the various actors becomes reasonably predictable.
For example, if an actor is dissatisfied with the outcome set
as compared with his acceptable outcome he has two options available:
1
alter the outcome set or alter his acceptable outcome.
190
He makes this
decision, either consciously or unconsciously, by comparing the costs
incurred in accepting a previously unacceptable outcome.
The cost of
changing that decision in terms of extension of completion time depends
upon where in the process the decision was made which excluded the
actor's acceptable outcome from the outcome set.
From the process
model it can be seen that the farther back along the process curve
that an outcome altering loop must extend, the longer the total process
completion time.
Coupling this fact with ability of the actor to
assign some value to the speedy completion of the process, it is possible to arrive at a rational cost-benefit approach for specific crisis
situations.
In the case of the invisible crises, the actors who
spontaneously change their acceptable outcomes make the determination
that the cost of fighting the outcome set is greater than the benefit
to be achieved.
Similarly, in the overt crisis situation, the costs
and benefits are considered reasonable equal by actors on both sides
of the controversy and therefore a confrontation in that situation is
a reasonable action.
The time-economic model has yet another important characteristic
insofar as both sides in a crisis situation make time evaluations
based upon a strategic evaluation of the opposing side and some prediction of the future outcome of the project.
In this respect, the
191
action of each side is dependent upon its perception of the process
and of the opposing side.
In the case of the bureaucracy versus
the community, the community has the advantage of some amount of
secrecy and unpredictability of the degree in which an issue is tfelt
by community members.
The bureaucracy, although required to be open
to public scrutiny by law, has the power to publicize only selected
portions of its process and to force the community into making its
own interpretations of the future course of the bureaucratic process.
The crisis behavior model is further reinforced by considering
the operation of changing an actor's acceptable outcome or changing
the process outcome set as a situation wherein some political force
acts through some distance of change to accomplish that change.
Borrowing from the physicist, it may be asserted that the political
force and distance of change multiply to produce some quantity known
as work which in turn implies the expenditure of energy.
In addition,
the greater the political force, the shorter the time period to
alter the process through some change, either to acceptable outcome
or to outcome set.
In overall perspective, the process model behaves as most systems
and tends to minimize the expenditure of energy in reaching its final
192
equilibrium at completion.
Therefore, if completion time versus
time to change outcome set or acceptable outcome of the disenfranchised actor is considered in terms of the available political force
to either side of the controversy, it becomes possible to predigt
crisis outcomes when such crises are incipient.
This type of prediction of crisis behavior is, however, restricted
by the ability of the actors to appraise the energy resources of the
opposition and the possible future course of the process.
Therefore,
it becomes increasingly important that adequate and correct information
is available to each of the actors in order for crises to be resolved
at an early stage.
This follows from the fact that if both sides
can predict the outcome there is little to be accomplished in a
crisis confrontation other than the expenditure of time which neither
side finds desirable.
The exception to this is, of course, the
situation wherein one side wishes to halt the project and prevent the
process from reaching a conclusion.
This special case will be discussed
later.
The prime difference between the time-economic model of crisis
behavior and the balance of power model often applied to crises situations is that in the time-economic model neither side benefits from
193
the maintenance of the status quo.
For example, in the balance of
power model often applied to the nuclear arms race there is an
implicit benefit in the prevention of one side achieving superiority
over the other. The situation is not static, as both sides continue
to expend energy in escalating their respective arsenals and a condition of dynamic equilibrium therefore exists.
In the case of the school
building process such constant escalation is impossible as the process
goal is desirable (having a school) rather than undesirable (having
a nuclear war or surrendering).
The recognition of this distinction
between the two models is crucial to rational behavior in a crisis
situation.
Returning to the special case of completion versus non-completion, the economic factor becomes something other than time. The
model takes on the characteristic of considering costs in terms of
available political force.
In the first case study, concerning the
community effort to halt the construction of a vocational school, the
bureaucracy was still time dependent although the community had only
the end game consideration of its continuing existance versus its complete destruction.
Obviously, the bureaucratic time constraint of
obtaining state funds was much more limiting and therefore it could
have been determined early in the process that the outcome was predictable.
The bureaucracy did attempt to force the community into
194
a time constraint by way of cutting off neighborhood improvement funds
and allowing normal deterioration to happen on a time based scale,
but this factor was never really significant as the time scale of
blight is so much more extended than the closely managed state funding processes.
Again this emphasizes the necessity of adequate data in making
early prediction of outcome. As both the bureaucracy and the community
are usually naive about the operation of the crisis model, they often
freely release information which is strategically damaging to their
specific positions.
Whether or not the experienced politician, bureau-
crat or community leader is consciously aware of the behavior of the
crisis model is unimportant.
What is important is that an examination
of his behavior would indicate that his actions follow the rational
strategy suggested by the model and therefore he is able to advance
his strategic position by feeding and ignoring spurious signals in the
process.
CRISIS MANAGEMENT.
Even with adequate information, crises would
not be controllable if their existence were solely a function of some
constant crisis threshold being exceeded in every conflict situation.
Time-economic evaluations would take place at each step in the process
and crises would occur as a result of process parameters which are
195
a function of decisions necessary at that step and not as a result
of any rational strategy for crisis management.
Fortunately, the
process does not have to be uncontrollable due to the fact that crises
themselves are not independent events occuring at potential crisis
points solely on the basis of the time-economic model.
Crises are
interdependent and the crisis threshold, the point at which an
actor feels that the alteration of the outcome set is worth the
costs involved, is determined to a large extent by the energy resources
available to him to change the outcome set.
If the actor has recently
expended energy in a crisis situation, his resources have been depleted
and it becomes more difficult for him to muster the force necessary
to participate in an overt crisis.
He then has the option of recon-
ciling has acceptable outcome with the outcome set or engaging in a
confrontation which he knows he cannot win,
In the case of community participation, this phenomenon takes
the form of increasing levels of community apathy following shortly
after the resolution of a crisis.
It should be noted that the
crises must be separated in order to prevent them from being treated
as a single crisis utilizing the same community organization effort
in order for this rule to hold.
Moreover, the community segments or
bureaucratic actors involved must be the same entities in each of the
196
crises in order for the first crisis to have any effect on subsequent crises.
This, of course, follows directly from the energy
depletion hypothesis.
Nonetheless, in behaving in accord with this
rule actors often make the mistake of considering different entitties
to be the same and therefore find to their surprise that a supposedly
depleted actor is not depleted at all.
By utilizing the system parameters of the process, including the
one crisis at a time, energy depletion, and time minimization hypotheses, it is possible for a sophisticated actor to excercise some
degree of control of the types and frequency of occurance of crisis
situations.
The potential of this control will be discussed
further in the conclusions to this thesis and its utiltiy to various
actors examined.
197
outcome curve
START&
process curve
T
6OMPLETION
FIGURE 1,
The progress of the process from point P1 to point P
2
reduces the possible outcomes from those included in outcome set
AB along the outcome curve to those included in outcome set CD.
As long as the process does not change direction significantly
and the process curve remains substantially linear, the set of
outcomes will always reduce in size as the process continues
toward completion.
That is,current outcome sets will always be
subsets of preceding outcome sets.
198
outcome curve
START
COMPLETION
FIGURE 2,
In the segmented, non-linear process the outcome set CD
described by P2 does not necessarily include the entirety of the
output set EF described by subsequent point P3. As the changes in
the process curve vectors at various points on the process curve
cause an increase in length of the process, the time elapsed from
start to completion is increased.
Every change in vector
direction of the process implies some force acting upon the process
and therefore the expenditure of energy by some actor to cause
the direction change.
199
outcome curve
A
Cr
T
START
2
d
22
rr
FIGURE 3.
In the case of contemporaneous decisions such as d1 and d
as in the step P1P2 shown above, the outcome set is not exclusively
the set C1D1 nor C2D2 but rather the resultant set CrDr.
It should
be noted that despite the fact that an output possibility is not
included in both sets, such as those possibilities in DrD 2 and CrCl,
it may well be included in the resultant set.
The resultant set is
impossible to identify until the tangents of both decisions, T1 and
Tare combined in some subsequent step.
The line Crr is in reality
unmeasurable and shown here only for purposes of arguement.
200
t
CONCLUSIONS
201
CONCLUSIONS
The process model and the crisis model constructed in
the preceeding analysis are useful insofar as they allow the
t
identification of some specific criteria for rational decision
making in crises situations in the school building process.
Moreover, by using the models to predict the behavior of
various process actors, it may be possible to avoid overt crises
or to resolve crises at a low level of energy expenditure or to
provide spurious information to provoke crises in an effort to
accomplish some future goal.
The understanding of these or similar situation models,
either consdiously or instinctively, allows many political
actors to operate successfully in crisis confrontation situations.
Usually, the political skill of such actors is the result of
many years of experigence with conflict situations.
However, it
should be possible to utilize the case studies and models presented in this document to get some general understanding of the
systemic nature of the process, its patterns and themes, and
through this understanding to identify the critical factors in
conflict situations.
202
The application of the models to future real world
situations rather than to documentations of historical cases
should provide the real test of its effectiveness as a ranagement tool.
Such tests have not been made as a part of this
thesis but should be feasible without too much difficulty.
Assuming that the models are effective and reliable
in controlling systemic behavior, several questions regarding the
ethics of their application become obvious.
For example, the use
of contemporaneous decision making as a means of providing spurious data to provoke crisis.
If such a false crisis is created and
a community group is decoyed from pursuing a significant decision until some future time when the reversal of that decision
will be too costly in time and energy, then the crisis which would
have occured had that decision been visible is ultimately resolved
as community frustration.
Extending the model to a more general
situation, which may or may not be accurate, it can be extrapolated
that such frustrations eventually may reach a point where an extremely long loop back in the process becomes a reasonable alternative to a major outcome which is seriously antipathetical to
community aspirations.
An example of this major looping would
be the St. Louis housing project which is being demolished by the
203
municipality only sixteen years after its construction because
its design is so unsuited to community needs.
To precipitate
such a costly response, the divergence between outcome and
acceptability had become cataclysmic.
t
On the opposite extreme, it is possible that a number of
concerned actors could utilize the model to construct a situation wherein the process is so closely monitored that no divergence
is allowed to occur.
As mentioned in the analysis, the logistics
of this close relationship between actors in a major process is
necessarily limited to small numbers of persons in situations
analogous to sensitivity sessions.
As most community persons
choose to participate sporadically on issues of major concern to
themselves, this level of interaction tends to favor a closed
community subset willing to devote the time and effort to the
process.
As laudable as their motives may be, by their existence
they tend to become just another layer of bureaucracy between the
community and the process, their taking on the time-continuous
character of the bureaucracy and shedding their personal characteristics as independent community members.
An example of this
sort of response is the Community Committee at the Quincy School
mentioned briefly in the final case study.
This group has been
204
participating in weekly decision making sessions with all
actors in the school building process for the past several
years.
The result has been a process of constant review and
revision on the most minor of details with no regard to the
time-economic model which may be relevant to community needs.
In their fascination with the process itself, many of the
committee members have lost site of the product goal and their
new interpretation of their role is process refinement rather than
product orientation.
Of course, the fascination with process and process modelling
is always a dangerous trap. The situation models presented
herein appear to be reasonably analogous to the real world.
However, it is all too easy to accept the model as a reflection
of reality and not the simplification which it really is. By
necessity, all models are merely simplifications which approximate the behavior of a real system.
In this instance the approxi-
mation appears to be good at the critical points demonstrated in
the case studies.
There is no guarantee that the approxima-
tions will hold equally well in all future situations.
One of the reasons that further work is needed in quantifying
seemingly indeterminate systems such as the school building
205
process is that more and more determinate systems such as the large
system management projects of agencies such as NASA and HUD with
their specific goals have direct implications in the easily
quantified lives of individuals.
At present, the City of Boston
is attempting to rationalize the physical design and construction
of new schools through a "systems construction" process wherein
several schools are constructed simultaneously with the resultant time and money saving benefits of economy of scale.
In
order for this program to be effective it will be necessary for
several schools to reach the end of their planning processes
simultaneously.
At present, the ad hoc management strategies being used
in the community relations and planning process do not lend themselves to such close control of the projects.
Unlike the management
strategies used by the architects, engineers and contractors
wherein there is a clear hierarchy of control, the community
planning process has no such strategic advantage.
Moreover, even
with the relatively rational structure of the design and construction process, the school building systems approach has taken
tens of thousands of man hours to develop and still is suffering
from numerous limitations which will have to be eliminated before
206
the process can become truly effective. Considering these problems and translating them into the context of the unstructured
confrontation situation of community relations and planning, it
can be seen that the process and situation models presented
herein are merely a beginning.
It is hoped that the examination of additional cases in other
cities and some quantification of the data into a simulation model
will provide some workable solutions in the near future.
Until
such refinements are made it is certain that the process will
continue to respond in a reflexive rather than rational manner.
And, as projects become larger with more capital commitments
and longer potential lives, such a reflexive manner will become
more and more costly to maintain.
207
t
APPENDIX A
HISTORY AND BACKGROUND OF THE
BOSTON SCHOOL BUILDING PROCESS
208
APPENDIX A: HISTORY AND BACKGROUND
In 1962 a study of the Boston Public Schools was done
by Cyril Sargent and a group of educators from Harvard
t
University.
The fame d Sargent Report documented what was
effectively common knowledge:
Boston's schools were old
and decayin g and ther e was no comprehensive program underway to repl ace them.
The majority of Boston school
buildings h ad been bu ild before 1900, often to absorb
the residen tial expan sion into the recently annexed suburbs
of Jamaica Plain, Wes t Roxbury, Dorchester, Roslindale,
Charlestown , Hyde Par k and Brighton.
Similarly, many schools
were built in the South End and Roxbury to absorb the
population shift which expansion produced.
A few more schools were built just prior to World War I
and another handful in the lat e 1930s.
World War II halted
new school construction and it was not until the early
1950s that Boston built a few more elementary schools.
Therefore, by the mid 1960s of the over 190 school
buildings in Boston, at least 90% were over fifty
years
old.
Part of the problem of new school construction was
209
the fact that new constru ction in general was done by the
various involved agencies with the appropriate approvals
and review of state and 1ocal regulatory bodies.
The
process had become unwiel dly and the confusion and
repetition had effectivel y caused the wheels of government
to grind to a stop in thi s vital area.
Other problems were created as a result of the
overall political climate and history of Boston municipal
politics.
Much of the highly skilled construction
management and design work was being done or delegated
by marginally equipped civil servants.
For many years
Boston had had regular scandals in the press concerning
construction work and contracting procedures.
It was
clearly time to streamline the process if anything was
to get built.
In a special report to Mayor John Colli ns in 1966,
the creation of the Publi c Facilities Commis sion was
first proposed.
In part
the product of the dynami c
Edward Logue, the Public Facilities Commissi on would be
210
endowed with certain broad and sweeping powers.
The new
agency would assume the function of the Boston School
Buildings Commission as well as the responsibility for all
public facilities.
The Commission would prepare the City's
capital budget for the City Council's approval.
It
would
have the power of eminent domain and be exempt from the
city building code.
It would build schools on the request
of the superintendent of schools, thus side-stepping the
lengthy process of school committee debate.
LEGISLATION FOR CHANGE
The new agency came into being as a result of the
enactment of Chapter 642 of the Acts of 1966.
Basically,
the Public Facilities Commission is a three member
commission appointed by the mayor and serving at his
pleasure.
The Commission hires a director who in turn
hires a staff with the approval of the Commission.
The
staff is not under civil service and serves at the
pleasure of the Commission.
The functions and operation
of the Public Facilities Department will be discussed in
211
more depth later.
Almost simultaneously with the establishment of the
Public Facilities Department, the Boston Public Schools
became subject to the Massachusetts Racial Balance Law,
Chapter 641 of the Acts of 1965.
Although the law had
been enacted a year earlier, the Boston School Committee
had been challenging the law through the courts.
The
law was upheld and all future construction of schools
in Boston was to conform.
The Massachusetts Racial Balance Law was the product
of two state-legislators, Eliot Richardson and Michael
Dukakis.
Mr. Richardson is now Secretary of Health,
Education and Welfare in the Nixon Cabine and Mr. Dukakis
was defeated as Dempcratic candidate for Lieutenant
Governor in the most recent election.
Legislators
Richardson and Dukakis proposed the law in part as a
result of prodding by the NAACP and other moderate black
organizations.
The reasoning behind the law appears' to have been
212
that the only way to insure first quality education for
This should be
black children is through integration.
in part because the school situation should be a model
of the integrated community in which the child will grow
up and in part because by placing white children in the
same schools with black children the political power of
whites would be used to insure adequate teachers,
and facilities.
materials,
Without challenging either of these
assumptions, it is interesting to see how these premises
were translated into law.
The most curious feature of the Massachusetts
Racial Balance Law is its definition of racial balance:
no more than fifty percent non-white.
This means that a
school which is 51% non-white is legally imbalanced while
a school that is 100% white is balanced.
Because of
this wording in the law, the law affects only a few cities
in Massachusetts, notably Boston, Springfield, Worcester,
New Bedford, Cambridge and Medford.
The law requires
that the school committees of the cities and towns file
annual reports listing the racial composition
each
school
found
in their systems.
If racial imbalance
213
exist, the State Commissioner of Education then requires
the school committee of that city or town in which the
imbalanced school exists to file a plan to al leviate racial
imbalance and to take steps to implement that plan.
The
state offe rs to reimburse the city or town 25% of the cost
of any new school built to alleviate racial i mbalance in
addition t o the normal 40% state schoolhouse construction
aid.
The following year the school committee s must file
their raci al composition reports again and if racial balance
has not been achieved another plan must be submitted and
so forth.
In addition to the additional 25% state construction
aid, the state may also suspend all state aid payments to
the school system if it finds that the system is not making
satisfactory progress toward the elimination of the imbalance
situation.
This would not be quite so bad except for the
fact that the state reimburses the cities and towns as their
school construction bonds are retired.
Therefore, if the
state sees fit to withhold aid it not only stops present
expenditures but leaves the city or town liable for any
214
debt it may have incurred under previous construction
projects which are receiving reimbursement.
The Massachusetts Racial Bal ance Law was a hastily
and sloppily drawn statute.
Sinc e its enactment it has
been illegal to build new schools in black neighborhoods
where the need for education is great.
Such schools,
by
virtue of their location would be predominately non-white
and hence would automatically cau se the suspension of
state aid not just to themselves, but to the entire system.
Moreover, if schools are to be built in black neighborhoods,
at least 50% of the seats must be reserved for whites to
balance the school.
The law does have its purpose,
but
do not try to explain that to the black mother whose child
is denied admittance to the schoo 1 next door because the
seats are being saved for the chi dren of liberal whites
who are willing to send their chi dren into the inner
city.
Each year when hearings are held to modify or repeal
the Massachusetts Racial Balance Law, the majority of those
at the hearings are white ethnic residents of the inner
city who do not like the law because they feel that it will
215
bring blacks into their neighborhoods.
The legislators
seeing this response have been reluctant to repeal the
law feeling that this response shows that the law must
be working.
Moreover, the NAACP and several other
moderate black groups still support the law and feel
that it can be made to, work.
216
THE BOSTON SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION PROGRAM
Est. Cost
Project Name
SBAB %
Status
Charles Taylor Additi on
none
open
Trotter
65%
open
3,100,000
Hastings Street
40%
open
1,0O,000
65%
open
350,000
Curley Addition
65%
open
1,980,000
John Marshall
65%
in const.
6,980,000
Joseph Lee
65%. in const.
7,930,000
Heath Street
65%
in const.
8,215,000
Kent (BRA site)
40%
in const.
4,940,000
Hart-Dean
40%
in const.
4,825,000
Olney Street
65%
in const.
7,365,000
Georgetowne
40% final plans
New English High Scho ol
65% foundation const.
24,505,000
final plans
Agassiz
40% final plans
5,460,000
Grover Cleveland
65% final plans
6,900,000
Charlestown High School
Physical Education Bldg.
65%
Dorchester H.S.
Annex
basics
$
225,000
5,870,000
1,800,000
217
40%
final plans
7,845,000
65%
basics
6,000,000
Blackstone Square (BRA site) 65%
basics
7,500,000
Norcross
65%
basics
7,500,000
Allston-Jackson
Horace Mann for the Deaf
40%
65%
ed specs
7,500,000
Campus High School
(phase 1 - BRA site)
65%
bid
18,000 ,000
High Point Village
(elem & middle sch ools)
65%
ed specs
15,000,000
Andrew O'Reilly
65%
site selection
7,500,000
ed program
Bunker Hill
40%
site chosen
ed program
6,000,000
Barnes
40%
site chosen
ed program
8,000,000
Carter (Elem & Middle)
65%
ed specs
Charlestown High School
(Academic bldg - BRA site)
65%
ed program
Minot-Hemenway
Quincy School (BRA
site)
Occupational Resource Center 65%
Dorchester H.S.
Annex II
Copley Square High School
65%
10,000,000
6,200,000
18,000,000
ed specs &
program revision
ed program
none open
1,200,000
625,000
218
65%
Mason/Logue
-
site selection
ed program
500,000
Lyman
40%
proposed
2,500,000
Roosevelt
65%
proposed
5,000,000
Fuller
65%
site selection
ed program
7,500,000
Wyman-Bowditch
65%
proposed
7,500,000
Campus High School
66%
prelim plans
Motley addition
65%
proposed
2,000,000
Business School
none
in const
6,000,000
site selection
ed program
3,500,000
(phase
i
18,000,000
2 - BRA site)
Hyde Park High School
40%
Southwest Campus H.S.
65%
site selection
20,000,000
ed program
TOTAL PROGRAM COST TO DATE
$
(EXPENDED AND COMMITTED)
297,815,000
219
t
APPENDIX B
THE ACTORS IN THE
SCHOOL BUILDING PROCESS
220
APPENDIX B:
DESCRIPTION OF ACTORS IN THE SCHOOL BUILDING PROCESS
THE BOSTON SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
It is logical to assume that the Boston School
Department plays a major role in the creation of each
school facility.
Insofar as the School Departmentacting
through one or more of its various subdivisions, is
responsible for instigating and planning of a new school,
this assumption is correct.
It is the formal request by
the Superintendent of Schools which first prompts action
on the part of the City to build a new facility.
Thanks to a Federal grant, the Boston Public Schools
maintain the Educational Planning Center which attempts
to keep tabs on changing space requirements and programmatic
needs.
The Educational Planning Center, an outgrowth of
the former Office of Program Development described in
Peter Schrag's book, Village School Downtown, is located
in temporary quarter in a building leased from the Boston
2?l
Army Base in South Boston.
The Educational Planning
Center is an agency staffed by educational professionals
whose major objective is to prod the sometimes inert
structure of the Boston Public Schools into keeping
I
abreast of the present.
Under Title III of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act, the educational planning center is to
provide supplementary planning services to the public
school system.
Prior to its creation, planning was done
in a haphazard manner.
After the passage of Chapter 642
of the Acts of 1966, the planning function was taken from
the School Department and made the responsibility of the
Public Facilities Department which will be discussed later.
During the first year of its operation, the Public Facilities
Department contracted with Dr. Robert Anderson and the
Harvard Graduate School of Education to conduct intensive
planning and programming efforts to enable the start of
new school construction.
At the prodding of Action for Boston Community .
222
Development, a non-profit community action organization,
the Boston Public Schools, through action of the School
Committee hired Evans Clinchy, an outside educational
specialist, to develop a proposal to obtain ESEA Title tIII
funds.
As a result of this proposal, Clincy organized
the Educational Planning Center under the three year term
of the grant.
Planning Center staff was appointed to the
center by the School Committee from among the ranks of
teachers and administrators already in the system.
In
addition, some funds were expended under the authority of
the center's director to hire outside talent under annual
contract for specified services.
At present, the Educational Planning Center is
staffed almost entirely by person nel who have their roots
within the Boston Public School System.
A number of
these persons have been with the center since its inception
and carry much of the original philosophy of change.
As
the original Federal Grant nears its expiration in August
of this year, it is unclear what will become of the
Educational Planning Center.
It is hoped that the center
223
will have proved its usefulness to the Boston School
Committee and will be included in the regular annual
operating budget.
However, in this year beset with
fiscal crises, it is certain that even if the planning t
center survives it will suffer reductions from its
present budget with the possible implication that
portions of the planning and programming process will
again be contracted to outside professionals.
Based upon recommendations of the Educational
Planning Center and sometimes other sources such as the
area superintendent, the home and school association,
or the chief structural engineer of the School Department,
the Superintendent periodically files formal requests
for the provision of additional pupil spaces in the
various sections of the city.
Although the School Committee has no official role
in the determination of school space needs, it is required
by the Massachusetts Racial Balance Law to file annual
plans for the elimination of racial imbalance with the
State Department of Education.
This requirement is
224
statutory in nature and is directed toward the majority
of city and town governments in Massachusetts where the
local school committee is charged with determining
building needs.
The Superintendent and the School
I
Committee do not necessarily find themselves in total
agreement concerning strategies to eliminate racial
imbalance and even if they did the Superintendent is
only impowered to request additional space and not to
determine its ultimate location or form.
The resulting
racial balance plans are often somewhat incongruous
with the realities of the school construction program
as determined by the Educational Planning Center and
the Public Facilities Department.
Moreover, the Boston School Committee is, to a
certain extent, an anachronism in this era of both
community involvement and control and systems management techniques.
Being elected at large from all parts
of the City of Boston, the School Committee is usually
composed of persons representing the white, Catholic
majority.
There is little hope for the election of any
minority group members in a school committee election and
225
hence the several minority neighborhoods find themselves
frustrated and without representation on the Committee.
Even so, the election of a minority member to the '
School Committee might be a victory in name only.
powers of the committee are basically two:
The
selection
of the Superintendent and approval of the operating budget.
Having discharged both of these obligations during a
relatively short portion of each calendar year, the School
Committee then addresses itself to minor administrative
matters such as approving sick leave, transfers of
teachers, approving appointments, and other details of
the ongoing s.,chool operation.
School policy, although
not set, is definitely shaped by the Superintendent who
very carefully monitors the attitude of his committee and
recommends policy which will be tolerable to them.
Although the School Comm ittee has no legal authority
over the capital improvements program spending for new
school construction, the Supe rintendent may work with the
Committee to pass resolutions to be transmitted to the City
Council for its consideration in approving school
loan
226
orders and the actual capital budget.
It is uncertain
what effect such resolutions have on council thinking, as
other budgetary considerations are usually much more
pressing on the council than a resolution from anothert
elective body.
Nonetheless, being in the political spotlight is
sufficient justification for the Boston School Committee
to engage in many spectacular if not meaningful gestures
to show their responsiveness to some ill-defined electorate.
Constrained by a multitude of laws which fix liability
upon them and heavily overburdened by lawyers turned
educators among their membership, the School Committee
frustrates those within and without the school system
by engaging in interminable semantic debates calculated
to keep themselves out of law suits and hopefully place
them in higher elective office.
Also in the School Department is the office of the
Chief Structural Engineer and his planning and engineering
section.
It is the responsibility of the Chief Structural
Engineer to repair and maintain the almost two hundred
227
From
school buildings in the Boston Public School system.
time to time the Chief Structural Engineer will recommend
the replacement of obsolescent buildings and consult with
the Superintendent concerning strategies to relieve
t
overcrowding in districts which have outgrown thei r
available space.
When the City submits plans for a
new school building to the Superintendent for his
approval, it is the Chief Structural Engineer who works
with the Superintendent in reviewing the design.
The Superi ntendent also calls upon his assistant
superintendents to help evaluate programs and plans for
new school buil dings.
Often the assistant superintendents
will be able to bring special expertise such as compensatory educatio n, training for the handicapped, science
and physical education to bear upon criticism of the
proposed design.
In addition to the traditional organizational
divisions, the School Department also has some peripheral
special function sections which have come about primarily
in response to State and Federal funding programs.
Among
228
these special functions are the Hot Lunch Program which
uses State and Federal aid to provide food services in
all the new schools.
A small staff of expert dieticians
and kitchen specialists make sure that all new programs
in the schools are capable of providing a suitable meals
program to meet Federal guidelines.
This involves
everything from planning the size and equipment for a new
school cafeteria to working out an ongoing budget and
menu for the school lunch program.
Under a special legislative act, the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts makes available special funds for the
education of-the hearing handicapped.
Boston operates the
Horace Mann School for these deaf children and works in
conjunction with Boston University to provide a comprehensive program in this area.
The Horace Mann School
is to move to a new facility within the next few years
and the planning for this facility has involved numerous
educational specialists from.both within and without the
Boston Public School system.
Probably the most exciting of the sub-agencies which
229
are within the Boston school system is the ESEA Title I
program.
Under the Federal Elementary and Secondary
Education Act, Boston receives funds to provide suppledeve 1op new edu cat ional
mentary services and
not othe rwise found wi thin the system.
programs
The very presence
of this Federal incent ive gives the ESEA program a
valuable independence within the normal sc hool s ystem.
Presentl y these ESEA funds are being used at the Trotter
Elementa ry School, the Lewis Middle School , and the new
Copley Square High Sch ool.
The Trotter has received much
publicity as the first "magnet"
system.
school in the Boston
It was planne d in the center of an urban renewal
area which is composed of a predominately black populatio n.
By providing special programs the school attracts white
families to send their children into this otherwise black
neighborhood thus raci ally integrating the school.
two years of operation
,
as a qualified success .
the program can be st be described
Although the Trot te
able to attract suffic ient numbers of whit e
attain "racial balance
In its
School
was
tudents to
under the law, it is highly
unlikely that a second magnet school would be able t
0
attract additional white children from liberally-minded
230
families, the supply having been exhausted by the Trotter.
The Copley Square High School,
which is
in it s first
year of operation, was planned to allow high schoo l
t
students to take advantage of the resources of the Back
Bay and Downtown areas of the city.
It
is
small building which has a capacity of only
and fifty students.
1ocated in a
three hindred
Although the idea of a downtown
"Parkway" type high school program such as the one in
Philadelphia has never been officially accepted by
the Boston School Department, the Copley Square High
School functions somewhat in this manner and will probably
become even -less structured as space nee ds exceed the
capacity of the building.
This type of leverage achieved
through the use of Federal funds and a quiet style of
gradual "subversion" of the traditional system by the
Title I director, the school principal and the parents and
students has achieved an effective open- campus school
with little publicity while. neighboring cities such as
Cambridge are still embroiled in debate over the merits
of the program.
231
THE MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Through the efforts of the famed American educator,
Horace Mann, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was the,
first state in the nation to create a state department of
education.
It was Mann's goal in the mid-nineteenth
century to provide a state standard to bring quality
education to all school systems, including the most
rural throughout the state.
Today, the Massachusetts
Department of Education labors diligently toward this
same goal, offering both technical and financial assistance
to all public school systems in the state and administering
legislation to insure equal opportunity.
Unlike New York State which classes its public school
systems into the "big six" cities and then the rest of
the state, Massachusetts applies one standard to every
system in the Commonwealth.
This equality under the law
has many devastating implications to school planning in
the dense urban areas.
One such problem with uniform
standards is site size for eligibility for state financial
aid.
The State Department of Education's School Building
232
Assistance Bureau (SBAB) reasons that what is adequate
physical education space does not change from Boston to
Bi 1lerica.
Unfortunately, finding an acre of open ground
in densely populat ed Boston for a base ball field is nott
the same as findin g that same acre in suburban Billerica
or rural Bolton.
Moreover,
the Sch ool
Building Assistance
Bureau has a finit e amount of funds to allocate among the
cities and towns.
Therefore,
the SBAB has chosen not to
pay for site acqui sition in view of the widely varying
cost of land throu ghout the state.
The SBAB will pay 40%
of the cost of new buildings and re 1ated site improvements,
but it will make no distinction bet wee n one thousand dollar
per acre land in the Berkshires and one hundred thousand
dollar per acre land in downtown Boston.
Fortunately, the SBAB does flex a little on minimum'
site standards.
Realizing that the stricL adherence to
state-wide site standards would mean no new schools in
Boston,
the SBAB is willing to compromise providing the
City of Boston can prove to the satisfaction of the SBAB
that the site being proposed is the largest possible under
the circumstances and that a ful 1 and adequate school
233
program can be conducted within its boundaries.
This
approach has lead to some very interesting solutions
ranging from cooperative agreements with the Parks and
Recreation Department for the use of adjacent public
playgrounds during school hours to high-rise schools,
mixed-use developments and the use of air rights.
Nonetheless, the State will not accept these novel
solutions without being first convinced that acquisition
of a larger site is impossible.
Often this approach is
reminiscent of the policy of "destroying a town to save
it."
To conform to minimum standards it would be
necessary to relocate several hundred families and
demolish their homes in order to build a school for their
children to attend.
The Massachusetts Department of Education also
administers the Racial Balance Law through its Racial
Balance Taskforce.
Headed by the Deputy Commissioner of
Education, the Racial Balance Taskforce is responsible
for reviewing the racial balance plans submitted by the
cities and towns and is required by law to instruct the
state comptroller's office to withhold all state funds to
234
any system which it finds is in violation of the law.
In
view of the fact that racial imbalance is basically an urban
problem common to only the larger cities and that sometimes
the most desirable solution to racial imbalance is to liocate
a new school in a specific location which may not have
adequate site potential, the Racial Balance Taskforce and
the School Building Assistance Bureau have from time to
time found themselves in conflict over the approval of
a proposed school site.
At moments like -that it is
all but impossible for a city or town government to
explain to local residents that it is powerless and merely
caught in the middle.
Although the Racial Balance Taskforce and the School
Building Assistance Bureau are the primary actors in the
school building process on the state level, the Massachusetts Department of Education also maintains several other
divisions which are concerned with the quality and scope
of instruction within the school systems, the school
budgetary process, the compulsory attendance laws and
other operating considerations of the various school
systems.
235
THE PUBLIC FACILITIES DEPARTMENT
Central to the construction of new schools in
Boston is the Public Facilities Department.
Under the i
control of the three member Public Facilities Commission,
the Department is responsible for preparing the city's
capital budget, selecting and acquiring school sites,
contracting with architects for the design of schools,
getting construction contracts, performing major
renovations on existing school buildings, leasing
temporary school quarters, ordering furniture and equipment
for new facilities, and disposing by sale, lease or transfer
of surplus school buildings and property.
In order to
carry out these responsibilities, the Commission is
given sweeping powers including eminent domain and
exemption from local building and zoning ordinances.
It
is required by law only to give the affected agency fourteen
days notice before taking action on design, construction,
site selection or disposition of municipal facilities.
The Public Facilities Department is organized into
236
several functional areas.
It maintains a professional
planning staff which is responsible for making budget
projections, working with the involved agencies and
community groups in programming and site selection and t
coordinating municipal and private interests to produce
an efficient facility.
There is also an architectural
staff which reviews and coordinates architectural work
and insures compliance with the functional program and
numerous fiscal and safety requirements.
An engineering
section involves itself with major renovations and some
new construction not only of schools, but also of all
public facilities.
The engineering section also super-
vises construction and advises the Public Facilities
Department contract lawyers of contractual requirements
and technical considerations in bidding documents.
In
addition, specialists in the fields of real estate and
contract furnishings are involved in land acquisition and
the specification and bidding on furniture and equipment
respectively.
The Public.Facilities Department works closely with
237
the Educational Planning Center in the development of each
new new school facility.
While the Educational Planning
Center uses its educational expertise to produce a concept
for a new school, the Public Facilities Department works
to translate that concept into a functioning school
building.
Both agencies work closely with community groups,
drawing upon each others resources, whenever possible.
THE BOSTON REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY
In urban renewal
areas,
the -Boston Redevelopment
Authority becomes an essential force in the shaping of
new school facility.- By administering Federal urban
renewal fu nds i n accordance with an urban renewal plan,
the BRA is the acquiring agency f or school sites in renewal
areas.
As land acquisition must be done i n accordance with
an approve d pla n in a renewal are a, and as most renewal
plans in Bos ton were drawn up in the early sixties without
regard for chan ging school site s tandards, the BRA has often
had to wor k wit h the Public Facil ities Dep artment and the
residents of th e renewal area to revise th e renewal olan
to accommo date an expanding and changing s chool site need.
Through the use of Federal renewal funds these sites are
238
to be acquired at minimal cost to the city.
Unfortunately,
the multi-layered involvement of Federal, State and Local
funds in such projects can often produce procedural bottlenecks which are all but impossible to comprehend.
i
The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) as successor
to the former Boston City Planning Board, is also charged
with the responsibility of comprehensive planning for
the entire city.
As the Public Facilities Department is
responsible for proposing the long range capital improvements budget for the construction of all public buildings
and facilities, the two agencies find themselves thrust
together in the process of planning Boston's future.
Recently, the Boston Redevelopment Authority has established
a number of "Local Advisory Committees" which are composed
of residents of the various neighborhoods.
These
committees work through the BRA to reach grass-roots
decisions concerning playgrounds, street signing and
recreation facilities.
The committees promise to be a
useful resource in allowing downtown decision makers to
sense the mood of a neighborhood without having to
239
undertake renewed community organization with the
beginning of each specific project.
t
THE MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY
Although the Public Facilities Department is
exempt from local city building codes, it is still
subject to the State Public Safety Code, and, in the case
of school buildings, the Schoolhouse Construction Code.
In many states,
school buildings are subject only to a
special statecode written and administered by the State
Department of Education.
In Massachusetts the Schoolhouse
Code is under the purview of the Massachusetts Department
of Public Safety sometimes facetiously referred to as
"those wonderful folks who bring you the State Police."
Although this may seem a reasonable place in state
government to place the responsibility for public safety,
it also means that the Massachusetts Schoolhouse Construction
Code always tends to lag behind the most recent state of
the art in new school construction.
240
Also under the auspices of the Massachusetts
Department of Public Safety is the Handicapped Advisory
Board.
Composed of handicapped persons, the board writes
and administers a code of requirements to make all publtic
buildings accessible to the 14% of the population which
has some form of physical handicap.
The Handicapped
Board is known for its stringent interpretation of its
own code and its requirements which have at times made
old buildings which were otherwise adequate but infeasible
for renovation.
Nonetheless, it should be noted that the
handicapped requirements are the only strong pressure to
make taxpayer supported facilities available to all of
the taxpayers.
ELECTED OFFICIALS
Among the many elected officials who influence the
school building process is, of course, the Mayor of the
City of Boston.
Insofar as he appoints the Public Facilities
241
Commission and submi ts his budget to the City Council,
The more politica lly
he is a prime actor in the process.
sensitive the mayor
the
M
e;
po
ii
4
c.
a1
l
j
sensitive
However, the mayor's direct role ,
is usually more one of setting general policy. There is
the process becomes.
nothing in the statu tes which r equires that the normal
bureaucratic actors and agencie s go out of their way to
involve the general citizenry.
The law assumes that
the electorate has its chance at election time.
However,
the mayor, working through his commission, may establish
a policy of direct c ommunity involvement.
as such involvement
itself it
Unfortunately,
is initiated by the bureaucracy
may provide the commu nity with only superficial
and ineffec tiv e entry poin ts in to the system.
However,
as there is no other agent who has the immediate power to
require commun ity involvement,
where he must
The Mayor is in a position
attempt to do this as best he can.
Just as the School Committee's power rests in its
approval of the actions of the Superintendent, the City
Council uses its power of the purse in approving or
242
disapproving the city budget as submitted by the Mayor.
The Council must vote on all
loan orders and hence has some
control of the school buildi ng process.
However, unlike
the old procedure of iss uing bonds for specific projects
which was in effect for so many years before the establishment of the Public Facil ities Commission, school construction
bonds are now issued in large packages withoutbeing tied
to any individual school building.
Without the reason to
debate the merits of ind ividual projects,
the Council
finds itself restricted to the debate of whether or not
new schools are needed i n Boston.
In view of the general
public sentiment, the issue is almost automatically
resolved, the loan order is passed, the bonds are issued
and the Council returns to debating the relative efficiency
or inefficiency of the administration.
This is not to say that the Boston City Council does
not make the budgetary planners work for their money.
Especially in election years. when many Councilors may have
aspirations to higher elective office, council meetings
have been known to turn into personal public relations
243
efforts on the part of the participants.
This can be
assumed to be part of the democratic process of government
and as long as the school building process can continue
on funds from the preceding loan order, it is only fair
to allow the debates to range free and wild.
Among all the cities and towns in Massachusetts,
Boston has a rather unique relationship with the state
legislature.
Being the capital city, Boston finds that
many decisions otherwise given home rule in the other
cities and towns are in Boston the exclusive domain of
the state legislature.
One constant source of confusion
to the neighb'orhood group involved in the school building
process is the fact that it takes a legislative act to
allow a school to use park land as part of the school site.
While the Boston City Council is entrusted with the
municipal playgrounds, the State Legislature is the only
power which can transfer control of parks.
The park question may seem a minor point, but when
?44
the efficient use of public space in some of the denser
neighborhoods is considered, often the only viable solution
is to use a public park as school play area from 9 a.m. to
2 p.m., returning it to the general public after thesethours.
Moreover, if the city intends to use state financial aid
from the School Building Assistance Bureau to make site
improvements such as baseball diamonds or bleachers, the
park land must be transferred to the School Department
The
in order to allow the expenditure of "school" funds.
problem becomes even more complex when the park land in
question is under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan
District Commission and not the City of Boston.
Generally a park land transfer affects only the
immediate neighborhood using that park.
Therefore, the
state legislature can treat its disposition as a minor
problem.
Usually, the local legislator wio proposes the
bill can use accumulated voting favors to his party
leadership or other legislators to assure passage.
The
process is time consuming but not impossible to cope with
and may prove to be a good safeguard when examined in
245
the light of our ever shrinking reserve of open space.
However, sometimes neighborhoods look upon major
parks which serve the city as a whole as likely resouraes
to avoid land takings in the neighborh ood.
In those
instances it is unlikely that the muni cipal government
would pursue the issue as far as the 1egislature, but
if it did it would be met with the est ablished lobbyingpower of numerous conservation groups and other community
pressures.
The State Legislature also enters the school
building process through funding of Massachusetts
Department of Education programs.
A good example is the
legislation which enabled the Department of Education to
offer state aid for the renovation and rehabilitation of
existing school buildings.
Although it may be more
economical to rehabilitate an existing building, the
legislature has never seen fit to appropriate any money
for this program.
And so the major cities are forced to
pursue a course of total new construction with the state
246
paying 40% of the cost rather than a program involving
renovation when the cost would fall entirely upon the
municipality.
t
Finally, the State Legislature has passed numerous
pieces of legislation over the past several years to
enable the cities and towns to enter into condominium
arrangements with private developers.
This means that a
school can now be built as part of a mixed, use complex
wherein the site will continue to return tax revenue to
the city.
Other legislative acts, both passed and pending,
include such things as aid for construction of schools
for the hearing handicapped, special state aid for the
establishment of the bilingual programs for Spanish
speaking children and other specific acts to accomplish
educational purposes.
OTHER INVOLVED AGENCIES
As if these many major actors in the school building
process were not enough to provide comprehensive services
247
and safeguard the rights of the citizens, there are at
least a dozen other public agencies which are involved to
varying degrees in the construction of a school building.
t
One of these agencies is the city's Law Department.
The Law Department, under the direction of the Corporation
Counsel, must approve all actions taken by the municipal
government.
Often this is merely a review of a Commission
vote or Council ordinance to insure that it is properly
worded and not in violation of the City Charter.
At
other times the Corporation Counsel is requested to
render a legal opinion on the proper form by which some
power granted by a new law can be utilized.
The Law
Department is composed of a small staff which is woefully
overworked.
In the case of any agency wanting to innovate
by departing from nprmal city practices, the Law Department
may take several years to research the matter before giving
an opinion as to the legality of the action.
If the true
function of the Law Department is to keep the city from
being sued for an illegal action, then it must be credited
with doing an admirable job.
However, if the function of
248
corporation counsel is to find legal routes for implementing
positive programs without infri nging upon the legal rights
of other bodies and individuals , then the Law Department
is so understaffed that it can never hope to keep up with
the research and innovative thi nking which would be
required.
The Boston Finance Commission is called a "watchdog"
agency which closely monitors the city's financial and
contractual policies.
The Finance Commission, much as the
Law Department, has difficulty coping with any procedure
or policy which departs from the usual.
All no-bid
contracts which the city awards must be reviewed by the
Finance Commission as well as approved by the Law Department.
The Finance Commission also, from time to time, issues reports
about situations or projects within city government which
it feels are inappropriate or mishandled.
Here again,
departure from the commonplace is the red flag which will
stop a project or program dead in the Finance Commission
for several months of review.
The Finance Commission has
been known to hold up an architectural contract for two
249
months over a discrepancy of three hundred dollars in the
fee while construction costs on the project were escalating
over $2500 per week.
t
The City Auditor is responsible for, among other
things, making sure that there are adequate funds on hand
to cover any contract or agreement which the city may
enter into.
This means that all contracts must also pass
through the auditors office for his approval.
A large
amount of paperwork is required before any disbursements
are made which usually means that those who contract with
the city must be prepared to wait extended periods before
payment is made.
The effect that this has is that
municipal contractors, be they contracting for a gross of
pencils or a multi-million dollar building must bid city
work high in order to realize a fair profit.
This situation
has been improving to some extent but it is not unusual for
the uninitiated contractor to suffer badly at the hands
of the auditor and his accountants.
The City maintains a Purchasing Department which is
250
charged with the responsibility of advertisi ng for bid all
materials and equipme nt which the city buys.
This includes
furnishings and equip ment for new school buildings.
In and of itself, the concept of a Purchasing Department
is not a bad idea.
By centralizing purchasing, advertising
and conformance with advertising standards can be
accomplished rapidly and effectively.
Suppliers are
immediately aware of when and where to place bids.
However,
it is the bidding pro cedure itself which sometimes confounds
the best of intentions on the part of innovative school
designers and architects.
All items advertised for public
bid must be described as three manufacturers or equivalent.
It is impossible to specify proprietary items under the
law.
This often hamp ers architects from obtaining
comfortable and compa tible equipment.
When dealing with
visual environments, as in school furnishings, the "or equal
in the specification rarely translates to a precise equal
delivered to the school.
The Public Improvements Commission is a commission
which acts as a liaison between the Public Works Department
highway division, the Public Works Department sewer
"1
251
division
the nepartment of Traffic and Parking, te
Fire Department
and other agencies concerned with the
maintenance and functioning of public ways.
Although
the Public Faci lities Commission has the power to close
streets at will , if the assembly of a school site should
entail the clos ing of a street, the matter will be
brought before the Public Improvements Commission.
As a
matter of good practice, this Commission will consider
the problems of traffic, free access of fire equipment,
underground uti lities and costs of realignment of adjacent
streets,
signal ization, and other implications of any
street closing.
The Public Improvements Commission also
involves itself with some public squares and some of the
new intown pedestrian malls where school buildi ngs may
wish to have curb cuts for access or to locate displays
or exhibitions of student works such as in the Dartmouth
Street Mall adjacent to the Copley Square High School
A new actor in the school building process is the
Model Cities Administration and Model Neighborhood Board
252
which operates in portions of Roxbury, Dorchester and
Jamaica Plain.
These two bodies are a product of the now
renowned Model Cities program of the United States
Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The Modelt
Cities Administration is a group of paid professionals
and community people who are working to develop the
community resources and social and physical environment
of the Model Cities Area.
The Model Neighborhood Board
is composed of elected representatives from each of the
six Model Cities sub-areas.
All projects in or adjacent
to the Model Neighborhood are coordinated through the
Model Cities Agency and the Model Neighborhood Board
to assure "maximum feasible citizen participation."
Education taskforces established by the Model Cities
Agency work with the residents of the Model Neighborhood
to plan sites and programs for new educational facilities.
The city government is legally bound by the terms of its
acceptance of the Federal Model Cities Grant to work
through this agency in all projects in the Model Neighborhood.
/
The administration of Mayor Kevin White has added yet
another set of actors to the school building process.
This is the Office of Public Service and the Little City
Halls which are located in the various neighborhoods of
t
the city.
Most of the BRA Local Advisory Committees
function out of the little City Halls and thus provide an
ongoing contact between the municipal government and the
communities.
In addition, the managers of the Little City
Halls are full time professional "mini-mayors" working in
each community and sensitive to the feelings of that
community.
Citizens use the Little City Halls to conduct
such mundane business as paying tax and water bills,
obtaining copies of birth and marriage certificates,
applying for permits and other paperwork which heretofore
would require a trip downtown to the Government Center.
In the process, many citizens have learned to use the
Little City Halls as a place to go with problems which
cannot seem to be solved through the maze of the normal
bureaucracy.
When the City Council recently attempted
to cut the Little City Hall program from the budget
253
254
claiming that it was a public relations tool and patronage
resource for the Mayor, citizen outcry quickly assured
that such a budget cut would not come about.
This in itself
shows that the Little City Halls are performing some useful
function in the neighborhoods.
The Boston Parks and Recreation Department is
possibly the best liked and least controversial of all
city agencies.
Under the present Commissioner, Joseph Curtis,
the Parks and Recreation Department has had its various
service trucks and other vehicles repainted in bright colors
and bearing the legend "PARKS AND RECREATION" with neither
the word Commission nor the ubiquitous City Seal featured
on the logotype.
This is only one way in the Parks and
Recreations Department that they have tried to remove the
normal bureaucratic'stigma attached to a city agency.
Working with the School Department, often leading the way,
the Parks and Recreation Department has instituted a
number of programs to allow community people of all ages
to use recreational facilities such as gymnasia and
255
swimming pools which have traditionally been the exclusive
domain of the School Department whose buildings housed
them.
Partially in response to the prodding of the State
Department of Education, the School Department has entered
into more and more cooperative agreements with Boston Parks
and Recreation to assure greater utilization of the city's
scarce recreational facilities.
In response to the recent public interest in
ecology, the State Legislature has created a new agency
known as the Conservation Commission.
It is unclear as
yet as to what the powers and functions of the Conservation
Commission will be.
However, under the present statute,
the City must notify the Commission of every intended
transfer of city owned land from one function to another.
The Commission then has fourteen days to make a recommendation concerning the city's action.
The city has no
legal obligation to act on the Commission's recommendation.
Finally, the Mayor has established his Cffice of
256
Human Rights to act as an advocate for minority anc other
groups who feel that their rights are being circumvented.
Although this agency has no direct and automatic involvement in new school construction, it sometimes finds itdelf
acting as mediator between the city government and certain
community groups.
If anything, the Office of Human Rights
has won the confidence of a large number of persons in the
various communities and has had this role thrust upon it
as a result of that confidence.
Often when an impasse is
reached between the city and a community group or between
two or more community groups themselves, the Mayor's
Office of Human Rights can successfully step in and use
its skill in human relations to effectively defuse an
otherwise explosive issue.
THE CONCERNED COMMUNITY
The community is too often spoken of as if it were
a clearly defined body of users with unity of purpose and
257
opinion.
The community is composed of many different
segments, some of which may not even exist in the
neighborhood immediately abutting the proposed school
t
site.
Of both moral and practical concern the city
government owes its first allegiance to the broadest citywide electorate.
After all,
this is the body which elected
the present governmental officials to their offices and it
is therefore their responsibility to attempt to serve the
broadest "public good."
In this sense, the long-range
city-wide planning goals and objectives must be considered
here.
It may be nice to give an individual neighborhood
exactly what it wants, but to do so the expense of future
neighborhood development and municipal fiscal stability
is not political responsiveness but instead political
opportunism.
In this sense, the municipal official is charged
with the responsibility of safeguarding the general public
interest.
There are few organized or ad hoc interest
groups which are willing or able to come forth on issues
258
of broad policy implications.
With the possible
exception of the venerable and ubiquitous League of Women
Voters, no organization volunteers time and effort on an
ongoing basis to supervise the process of government and
speak in the broad public interest.
A second form of community is ongoing quasi-public
and private organizations and interest groups.
Social
service agencies are constantly advocating to the municipal
government on behalf of the neighborhoods which they serve.
These agencies may range from United Community Services
settlement houses to local church executive boards.
Other organizations such as conservation ?nd Special
interest organizations have specific functions and goals
which they want to be sure are thoroughly considered in
any governmental action.
Some special interest groups take a long term interest
in the specific issue of school politics.
Such is the
Citizens for the Boston Public Schools which concerns
itself primarily with educational issues.
The CBPS.has
not yet involved itself in matters of new school
259
construction except insofar as to decry the general overall condition of the majority of public school buildings.
If an oragnization such as the CBPS were to become deeply
t
involved in specific neighborhood issues, it would quickly
expend its energies on adjudicating local controversies
and thus dilute its growing impact on system-wide policy.
Such local issues are best left to involved parents and
possibly the Home and School Associations.
Sometime villainized and sometimes praise are the
local Home and School Associations, Boston's own version
of the ubiquitous Parent Teachers Associations which exist
in almost every school district in the United States.
These groups usually represent the interests of their own
families and children who attend the existing schools in
the neighborhood.
As most buildings take about four years
from the first conception to completion, it can be said
that if one's youngest child is in the second grade,
participating in planning a local elementary school is
planning for one's grandchildren.
Attempts of Home and
School Associations to interest mothers of preschool
260
children in participating in school planning meetings
have met with minimal success.
The mobility of the
average American family is such that fewer and fewer
neighborhood residents are certain enough that they will
not be moving to bother to participate.
Working through the Educational Planning Center
and the ongoing local agencies such as Home and School
Associations,
the Little City Halls,
the Local Advisory
Committees, Model Cities, or just plain sending notices
home with the children at the local schools,
the practice
has been for the city to invite the formation of two
committees:
a site committee and a curriculum committee.
Everyone is welcome to participate in these committees
and to make recommendations to the School Department and
the Public Facilities Department concerning possible school
sites and local needs in the program and facilities of the
proposed school.
The curriculum and site committees
generally compose the strongest link with the community
throughout the school planning process.
A new community actor has arrived on the school
261
planning scene during the past several years.
community advocate or advocate planner.
He is the
Usual ly he
is attached to a nearby school or university, although he
may be a practicing professional in architecture, planhing,
law or other related urban fields.
He volunteers his time
free or at minimal charge to community groups to help them
represent their interests to the powers that be.
Community
advocates come in all manner of qualifications and
motivations.
Some are highly motivated professionals who
have lived or worked in the neighborhood in the past and
feel that they can contribute to the project with their
skills.
Some are academics attempting to get their
sincerely motivated students to use their time and skills
to help a neighborhood prepare proposals and avoid being
shortchanged by the overworked and someti mes
civil servants who may
to the problem.
incompetent
not inve stigate al 1 al ternatives
Some community advocates are merely
self-styled demagogues who wish to inflate their own egos,
try out "innovative solution.s"
from the journals which
may or may not fit the neighborhood
or merely engage in
an exercise to prove their paranoia of the municipal
government is justified.
262
Nonetheless, when seriously involved and guid ed by
a workable ethic and professional competence,
advocate performs a beneficial functio n.
the communi
Except to the
most insecure bureaucrat,, community advocates can be a
real help in solving compl ex school building problems.
The community's confidence in them, their added time and
skills, and the fact that
they are not prejudiced by
previous solutions makes them an excel lent resource in
the planning process.
As long as the community advocate
realizes that he is dealin g with real
people with hopes
and frustrations and that his goal is to solve a problem
and not to prove a point, the result is usually beneficial
to all concerned.
Last but not least among the community actors ,re the
concerned individuals.
two categories:
These pers ons usually fall into,
the abutters and the displaced.
as a proposed school site is reaso nably determined,
As soon
both
those who will be displaced by the facility and those who
will find themselves living next to a school will suddenly
come to the fore with all manner of questions,
concerns,
263
threats and pleas.
No one likes to be displaced and no
one can argue against the fact that the burden in these
cases falls unfairly on some individuals.
Often the city
will attempt to gerrymander a school site boundary to
t
avoid taking a small business or multiple family dwelling.
Sometimes such takings are unavoidable and sometimee the
gerrymandering is done at a large cost to the final design
of the school.
Often abutters will come forth and offer
to sell their properties to the city to be added to the
school site.
One of the major problems with both purchase agreements and eminent domain takings is the manner in which
compensation is fixed by the law.
The Constitution of
the United States guarantees that no private property
may be seized by the government without just compensation.
In the practice of eminent domain in Massachusetts this
means fair market value as determined by an independent
appraiser.
There are certain relocation expenses which
must be borne by the government and in the case of a land
taking involving more than four families, a relocation plan
264
must be filed with the State.
Eminent domain is an
absolute power and the citizen cannot contest the taking,
only the amount of damages he is compensated for his
property.
In the case of a negotiated purchase, the city is
prohibited by statute from paying more than 25% over the
average assessed valuation of the property for the preceding
three years.
As assessments in the City of Boston generally
average about one-third of fair market value, negotiated
sales are rarely used and the procedure is instead one of
eminent domain with the fair market value determined by
appraisal being used to set the amount of compensation.
This process is referred to as amicable taking and
and is
not uncommon in many land acquisition procedures.
Non-resident owners of businesses comprise a much
maligned and little understood community which is often
short-changed at public meetings.
Not living in the
neighborhood, these persons are rarely informed about
265
local planning decisions until it
is too late to affect
Often community groups will suggest taking "that
ugly factory" rather than the homes of local residents
them.
without being aware that many residents find employment
in that factory.
Business relocation poses still another unique
problem under Massachusetts law.
Relocation expenses for
businesses are limited by statute to a maximum of three
thousand dollars whether that business be a corner newsstand or a steel mill.
This fact often restrains the
city from making an otherwise justifiable business taking
as such an act would certainly put many major employers
into bankruptcy with the resulting social costs to the
neighborhood and the city as a whole.
266
APPENDIX C
THE PROCESS OF
NEW SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION
2§7
APPENDIX C:
THE PROCESS OF NEW SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION
The bureaucratic process through which each
new school project in Boston flows from conception to
completion is complex.
The following is a description
of the actural flow with notations made wherever
possible of how this departs from the theoretical
operations suggested by legislation and organizational
charts.
PLANNING NEW SCHOOLS
The overall planning of new school needs comes
from several sources.
Officially, the Public Facilities
Department is responsible for the preparation of the
long range Capital Improvements Program and the Ed.ucational
Planning Center is responsible for predicting new school
needs.
In reality the process is not quite so simple.
268
Data relative to new school needs impinge upon the
Superintendent's office from many different sources.
The School Committee's Racial Balance Plan and thq
outcome of the ongoing conferences between the Department
of Education Racial Balance Taskforce and the Public
Facilities and School Departments produce a portion of
the projected building program which must be more or less
adherred to to guarantee the continuance of state financial
aid to the system.
Similarly, the Boston Redevelopment
Authority is constantly monitoring new housing construction
in Boston and notifying the Educational Planning Center
of projected upswings in the residential population of the
various neighborhoods.
The Educational Planning Center reports from time
to time to the Superintendent of Schools concerning the
projected pupil space needs of the school system.
Educational
The
Planning Center projections are based upon
lower grade enrollments,
new construction trends,
census
data and demographic trends in the neighborhoods related
to open enrollment and racial balance.
269
To further complicate the matter, old school
buildings may suddenly fall victime to fire or malicious
vandalism which requires their replacement ahead of
anticipated schedule.
One recurring problem is massivq
failure of antiquated heating systems in buildings
which are scheduled for replacement within the next
several years.
Economics does not warrant the replace-
ment of these heating plants but pressing space needs
can override logical economic analysis.
In receipt of all
grumblings from parents
this data plus less specific
students and staff, the
Superintendent requests the Public Facilities Department
to provide new or repla cement pupil spaces in specific
areas of the city.
The Public Facili ties Department
has the legal right to act upon these requests as it
sees fit.
Howe ver,
unl ike the organi zational flow
charts which show this process to be linear, decisions
are usually mad e by ani mated discussi ons between the
Superintendent and the Public Facilities Commission.
These discussions are further facilitated by the fact
that one of the three members of the Public Facilities
Commission has traditionally been the Superintendent of
Schools himself, although this is not required by
statute.
As a result of these discussions between the
Superintendent and the Public Facilities Department,
the decision is reached that a new school is needed in
a specific neighborhood.
The Educational Planning
Center specifies the approximate capacity of the school
and,
with the Chief Structural Engineer, makes some
predictions as to how pupils will be distributed between
this new facility and existing facilities once the new
school is completed.
FINANCING THE FUTURE
Meanwhile the financial planners at the Public
Facilities Department have been making some rough estimates
271
as to the overall cost of the new school construction
program during the next fiscal period.
These pre-
dictions are included into the overall capital
improvements program which the Public Facilities
I
Department then transmits to the mayor's Administrative
Services division for inclusion in the proposed budget.
Although most city borrowing is constrained by a debt
limit fixed by law which allows the municipal corporation
to have only so much money outstanding in debt compared
with the total city tax base, school construction loans
are not included in this debt limit.
The mayor and his Administrative Services staff
analyze this budget in light of the existing financial
status of the city and, with consultations with the
involved departments, adjust it into a form which the mayor
feels will be palatable to the City Council.
The budget is then transmitted to the City Council
for approval.
The Council usually challenges many items
in the budget and holds hearings to.determine the
272
necessity of specific budgetary requests.
Unfortunately,
many of the budget items are statutory obligations of the
city such as interest and retirement of outstanding debt,
assessments to support the MBTA and MDC, mandatory vetdrans
benefits and other items.
This leaves the Council with
a number of items which it can pare and a finite time to
approve or veto the budget before it goes into effect
automatically.
In view of the operating budget, the capital budget
is usually much less controversial.
However, the debate
can become quite brisk in relation to how debt obligations
will affect the immediate tax rate.
Assuming that the capital budget is accepted in
substantially its original form, it is now the legal
responsibility of the City Council to pass loan orders
to authorize the issuance of municipal bonds to finance
the construction of various municipal facilities.
Following the passage of a loan order there is a period
within which the voters may petition the city government
273
for a referendum on the issue.
However, as this petition
requires a large number of signatures and as school loan
orders are not tied to specific projects, this referendum
procedure has not been used in many years and loan orders
invariably go unchallenged.
Working through a commerical "bond house"
and with
the approval of its bond counsel, the city prepares the
bond issue for sale to private and institutional investors.
Although authorized, bonds are generally marketed only as
projects make demands upon funds in order to avoid having
to pay debt service of monies whi ch are lying fallow in
the city treasury.
Although the School Building Assistance Bureau will
pay 40% of the construction cost of all new school
buildings and 65% of the cost of buildings which help
alleviate racial imbalance, this reimbursement comes only
as the city retires its bonds.
Assuming that the city did
not borrow for new construction, the reimbursement would
274
come in a lump sum upon completion of the facility.
However, as the state sees no reason to assume debt
service in lieu of the cities, it is the obligation of
the cities to assume their own debt and pay all debt
service with the state only reimbursing the fixed
percent of the principal.
A recent amendment of this
process by the State Legislature will result in thc
State reimbursing debt service on now schools constructed
after 1971.
Other non-capital projects such as alterations,
repairs and renovations do not fall into the capital
improvements budget and must be paid for directly out
of operating funds and hence have a pronounced influence
on immediate tax rates.
The School Building Assistance
Bureau is quite strict in its interpretation of new
construction versus renovation and often this interpretation borders on the ridiculous.
A good example of this interpretation was the
275
McCormack School built adjacent to the existing Dever
School at Boston's Columbia Point Housing Project. 'The
McCormack School has a full hot lunch program and
cafeteria.
In order to make this program accessible td
the students at the Dever School, a bridge between the
new and existing buildings was constructed as part of
the construction of the new school.
The School
Building Assistance Bureau reimbursed the city for a
portion of the cost of the new bridge but would not pay
one dime toward the cutting of a doorway in the wall of
the existing school to complete the connection.
In view of this reimbursement formula and fluctuating
obligations on the part of the city, it is not always the
case that total project cost is a direct indicator of a
project's impact on the municipal tax rate.
Although
it is reasonable to argue that all deferred costs catch
up with the tax payer sooner or later,
the constantly
escalating construction costs of our inflationary
economy have made this truism less and less certain
with each passing year.
Often maintenance and renovation
276
costs to keep an obsolescent facility running may have a
more deleterious effect on municipal finances than the
seeming large expenditure incurred for new construction.
It is difficult enough to explain this reasoning to thet
fiscally initiated, but the counterintuitive logic is
often enough to send the City Council membership to new
heights of florid debate.
THE SITE SELECTION PROCESS
Of all the actions which must be taken in the
construction of a new school building, the act of site
selection is probably the most dramatic and po1iti cal ly
controversial.
While finances and educational philosophy,
architecture and construction management may 1end
themselves to intellectualized debate, the sim ple act
of finding a place to put the building strikes close to
home in dealing with the physical realities of every
neighborhood.
277
It would be laudabl e if
the intense community
interest in site selecti on could be maintained throughout
all facets of the planni ng process.
A brief analysis of
I
the attraction of site selection debate yields several
obvious features unique to that issue.
Primarily, site
selection i mpinges upon every member of the community,
whether he has schoo 1 aged children or not.
In the
processes of si ti ng a scho ol, everyone's home is in some
jeopardy of bei ng ta ken at one time or another.
Traffic
flow and kids c 1imbi ng bac kyar d fences are issues of
concern to many res i dents who do not want their properties
encroached upon by an adjacent schoolhouse.
safety, tra nsportation,
Issues of
and walking distance are invariably
debated by parents interested in the comfort of their own
children.
Every homeowner who has ever had to pump out
his flooded basement or pay to remove a rock from his
property suddenly stands up at public meetings as a soils
engineer conversant with the water table and foundation
problems of the neighborhood.
There are few local citizens
who, if prodded, will not volunteer to give an opinion on
a proposed site.
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Usually, the first act in site selection is the
establishment of a site committee in the neighborhood
through public meetings held under the sponsorship of
I
the Educational Planning Center.
The site committee is
briefed on some site selection criteria to be considered
and is asked to make proposals for discussion.
Here,
more than anywhere else in the process, community participation is strong, viable and positive.
Living in the
neighborhood, community members often have ideas which
are not obvious to the outsided professional making a
cursory inspection of the area.
Unfortunately, site standards are not absolute and
often the community feels that a proposed site is being
rejected arbitrarily by the bureaucracy.
It is not
uncommon for a few persons to say that a "payoff" cr
some political favoritism is involved in the city's
rejection of a favored site.
Generally,
sites are
evaluated on the basis of three rather broad considerations:
feasibility for acquisition and construction;
279
approvability by the School Building Assistance Bureau;
and, suitability under the Racial Balance Plan.
As no
site is ever optimum and as Boston has more than its
share of special cases, it is almost impossible to
arrive at a set of unbendin g criteria.
Over the years
experience has indicated where snags and bottlenecks
will occur in land acquisit ion.
The School Building
Assistance Bureau will appr ove some extremely unusual
sites if it can be convince d that there is no alternative.
The Racial Balance Plan bei ng a very subjective document
responding to a somewhat vague law even leaves some room
for administrative flexibil ity providing that the State's
Racial Balance Taskforce can be convinced that the objectives of the plan are not being circumvented.
In case of physical feasibility and case of land
acquisition, physical feasibility is by far the simplest
problem.
Almost anything is possible if the budget is
large enough.
However, sometimes it is not desirable to
distort a school into an educationally inadequate
2,80
building in order to conform to a particularly difficult
site.
Moreover, as new schools are paid for by the city
and state as a whole, neighborhoods rarely consider
economics as a real criteria, reasoning in their own
I
way that if they do not spend the money in their neighborhood,
some other neighborhood will spend it on its school
building.
Often school s ites involve street closings as well
as the use of conti guous parks or playgrounds for
school recreational purpos es.
closings,
In the case of street
the Public Facil ities Department has the legal
power to close streets at will.
However,
as a matter of
good practice, the Public Improvements Commission is
usually consulted and some of the resulting problems
which are brought to light are often enough to delay
complete assembly of the proposed site for lonq periods
of time.
One primary cons ideration in street closings
is vehicular circulation, both from the standpoint of
general traffic and also i n consideration of the
movement of emergency vehi cles such as fire fighting
281
apparatus.
Few neighborhoods are concerned with the
impact a street closing may have on through circulation
serving the larger city.
The free flow of fire apparatus
may appear to be a dodge on the part of the city, but
anyone who has witnessed fire department operations can
testify to the fact that often seconds do count.
Often what lies under the street may be more of an
obstacle to a street closing than what travels on it.
Sewer, water, gas, steam and electric utilities all have
to be considered.
Often it is impossible to place a
building over such utilities not only for structural
reasons but for reasons of accessibility for maintenance.
Here bottlenecks in site acquisition may arise due to
the complexities of maintaining adequate slopes for
relocating sewer lines.
The fact that private utilities
such as Boston Edison and Boston Gas may bring their
added bureaucracies to the problem may further slow
acquisition.
As mentioned earlier, it is sometimes desirable to
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utilize existing parks and playgrounds as part of a new
school site in order to provide ade quate physical
education facilities to meet state standards.
In most
cases the School Building Assistanc e Bureau has insisted
that the School Department have ful 1 control over school
play areas so that other non-school functions have no;
possibility of usurping the play areas during school
hours.
This means that cooperative agreements
which
can be changed at will between the Parks and Recreation
Department, the Metropolitan Distri ct Commission or other
recreational agencies and the Schoo 1 Department are not
adequate in the state's opinion to justify the expenditure
of state funds on a potentially ina dequate school site.
The lawyers at the School Building Assistance Bureau have
insisted that the School Department must have the
equivalent of "fee simple" interest
in all of the school
site in order to spend state school funds on site
improvements.
The "fee simple" int erest can take the form
of either direct transfer of title
or 99-year leases in
the case of quasi-public areas and MDC lands.
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As the transfer of title of playgrounds requires
the approval of the City Council and as the transfer
of title of park land requires an act of the state
t
legislature, these arrangements can often further
delay the acquisition and approval of school sites.
Moreover, in view of the ever shrinking resource of open
space in the inner city, it is often more desirable to
use the school building program as a lever to obtain new
open space and recreational facilities which can be used
by all the community after normal school hours.
The School Build ing Assistance Bureau publishes
minimum standards for school sites.
Unfortunately, state
standards are set wit h the more sparsely settled sub urban
and rural community i n mind and cannot be realistica 1ly
applied to the inner- city.
Therefore,
the state has been
willing to accept nov el solutions including air righ ts,
roof top play areas,
practices
years,
mixed use structures and other
novel
After working with the state for a number of
a fairly good understanding has been generated on
284
the part of the City of Boston as to what is acceptable
and what is definitely not acceptable.
As acceptability
varies from one neighborhood to the next depending upon
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population density, topography, land acquisition costs
and other factors, it is not possible to assure approval
in every neighborhood just because a specific solution
was accepted in one particular part of the city.
This again
is seen as an evasive tactic by many communities which cannot understand why a site solution accepted in a dense
inner-city area is not acceptable in their more sparsely
settled neighborhood.
The small, tight sites being utilized in the dense
urban core are seen by many minority groun s as an effort
on th e part of the city to deprive them of a rambling
subur ban type school while the larger sites utilized in
the more suburban neighborhoods of Boston are preceived
by th e white middle-class residents as a failure on the
part
of the city to respond to their desir e to minimize
taki ngs of private homes.
Even at this it is hard to
predi ct how a neighborhood will react to any given site
285
proposal and that, in part, is why the site committees
for all their limitations have proven to be an invaluable
tool in planning for new school construction.
THE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
The educational program is the written document which
details what programs and facilities are to be included
in a new school
The Educational Planning Center is
responsible for the preparation of this program and to do
so it organizes a curriculum committee much in the same
manner that the site committee is structures.
Ideally,
the curriculum committee is programming the new school
at the same time that the site committee is off searching
for a site.
However', the controversy which usually
surrounds site selection frequently distracts community
interest from the abstract consideration of programming
until such time as the site is resolved.
Just as the Public Facilities Department and the
286
Educational Planning Center brief the community site
committee on site selection criteria, these agencies also
make short presentations, often illustrated with slides
and augmented by field trips, to acquaint the curriculum
committee with the present state of the art and
possibilities for new school construction.
Boston is
presently engaged in a program of "open plan schools" which
are a radical departure from the traditional closed
classroom organization which typified the schools most
parents attended as youngsters.
The presentation of the
open plan concept, its purposes and possibilities often
proves to be a series of surprises both to the community
people and to the educator who are never sure of what
reaction this relatively innovative program will receive.
Basically, open plan schools differ from the more
traditional educational plants in that they place several
class sized groups under the supervision of several teachers
in a common open area.
Furnishings and partial dividers
are designed so that the space may be used in a large
number of ways to accommodate all sizes of groups engaged
287
in the learning process.
Children are encouraged to
work independently in this environment and use the teacher
and other resource personnel to help them with leariing
problems which they cannot solve on their own.
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Needless to say, one of the first questions which
invariably arises from the parents is how can order be
maintained in this unstructured environment.
The answer
given is that the comfortable, carpeted environment usually
provides enough educational diversions for the children
that they gladly participate in the learning process.
Field trips to several well designed open plan schools
in the Boston area bear this out and the majority of
parents are quickly convinced of the benefits of this
more relaxed program.
Of the early open schools which Boston constructed,
one or two suffered from programatic and architectural
errors in acoustical treatment and space planning.
This,
added to a failure on the part of the school system to
adequately train and brief teachers on how to cope with
288
this new environment, gave the open plan school program
a poor reputation in some neighborhoods of the city.
Here again slides and tours of properly functioning
schools have readily overcome the qualms of most parents.
Most elementary schools being built in Boston have
a capacity of approximately one thousand pupils with none
By aggregating
smaller than seve n hundred and fifty.
large number s of pupils at a cen tral
location it
is
possible to provi de all manner of spe cialized facilities.
Schools open ing i n Boston within the next several months
include such faci lities as gyms, pool s,
science suites,
art suites, s.p ecial work shops, anima 1 rooms, greenhouses,
aquariums, perfor ming arts cente r and more.
Economics
prevents the incl usion of all of thes e facilities in
every school
so by working with the neighborhood it is
often possib le to see exactl
lie.
The Educati onal Planni
where community interests
Cente r encoura ges parents
to suggest specialized facilities which will be relevant
to the particular social structure of the neighborhood
289
and to propose community programs which can be conducted
in these facilities either by the School Department, the
Parks and Recreation Depart ment or the neighborhood
itself.
is
An excellent examp le of this type of programmitng
the new Kent School , now under construction in
Charlestown.
Although this is an elementary school,
full locker facilities have been included adjacent to
the school gymnasium for use by adults in the community
who want to use the gym in the evenings.
Other neighbor-
hoods have generated such ideas as the inclusion of the
neighborhood health clinic in the school complex to serve
both the children in the school and the community as a
whole.
The School Building Assistance Bureau has generally
accepted these ancillary fu nctions of the school and
declared them eligible for state financial aid.
With all
its
advantages of economy of scale, the
larger elementary school does pose the problem of being
too big for a smal 1 child to cope with.
Generally this
problem is met by dividing the complex into "houses"
which function as smaller schools surrounding a corn--of
290
central facilities.
Kindergartens have their own
private toilets and separate play areas adjacent to the
classroom space to further reduce the scale of the school
for the smaller children.
Through intelligent programrqing
the open plan classrooms become intimate communities
within the total complex.
This is to be contrasted with
the traditional school where the child is placed in a
rectangular room containing twenty-nine other children and
asked to function as if he and the teacher are the only
ones present.
The ultimate product of the efforts of the curriculum
committee and the Educational Planning Center in the
form of the program document goes to the office of the
Superintendent of Schools for his approval.
There it may
sit for several weeks or longer being scrutinized by the
Superintendent and his assistants for problems which may
prohibit the operation of the school as the planners have
envisioned it. Assuming that the program poses no
insurmountable problems from the standpoint of legality,
maintenance, teacher training and acceptance and other
operational and philoso'phical criteria, the program is
291
approved and transmitted to the Public Facilities
'epart-
ment for translation into a physical reality.
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THE EDUCATIONAL SPECIFICATIONS AND DESIGN REQUIREMENTS
The program which arrives at the Public Facilities
Department is rarely in a form which can be directly
translated into a building by an architect.
Generally
the Public Facilities Department hires a consultant to
take the programatic requirements and translate them into
specific spacps of given square foot areas and definite
interrelationships.
This process may take several weeks
while the consultant carefully analyzes the educational
goals of the program documents and enumerates the various
spaces and areas which will be required to implement them.
As this process nears completion it is possible for the
first time to see if the site selection process has
produced a site which is totally adequate for the accommodation of the total school program.
292
The document which the consultant produces is
known as t he educati onal specifications.
mitted to the School
It
is sub-
Building Assistance Bureau for its
approval as t o its adequacy in view of state standards
and hence its
el igibility for state funds.
I
Meanwhile
the Educat ion al Plan ning Center, the Public Facilities
Department and the c onsultant evolve a set of design
requiremen ts which detail such things as the types of
equipment and furni s hings,
the special cabinet work to
be include d i n each room, the specific spatial arrangements and other details which the architect is to follow
in his des ign.
With the state's approval received,
the educational
specifications and design requirements are submitted to
the Superintendent for his final approval.
Under the law
he has fourteen days to make any comments he has about
these document known to the Public Facilities Department.
With the site and program defined, the Public Facilities
Department now takes the first step toward an architectural
design.
293
At the recommendation of the director of the
department, the Public Facilities Commission votes to
hire an architect to design the school.
Generally the
I
architect is selected for major projects from a list
prepared by the chief architect of the Public Facilities
Department.
It has been the objective of the department
to hire highly competent architects for all major projects.
Although politics does enter into the architect selection
process, usually architects for new schools are selected
on the basis of professional reputation and the recommendation of the highly professional chief architect.
Other minor municipal projects may not do so well in the
architect selection process, but for the most part the
quality of public building in Boston is superior to almost
every other major American city.
One need only
to look
at the general design quality of New York City's public
building program to verify this
statement.
Architects' fees are set by standard rate tables
published by the American Institute of Architects.
Fees
294
are based upon a fixed percent of the total construction
cost, the percent being determined by a graduated scale
adjusted for different building types.
After selection
by the Public Facilities Department, architects receivet
a written contract outlining the scope of their work and
the manner of payment of all fees and allowances for
supplementary services such as site surveys, soil borings,
and so forth.
Many architects start work on city projects
long before they have a signed contract in hand as following
the Commission vote to award contract the actual contract
must pass through the Finance Commission, the City Auditor,
the Law Department, and end up in the Mayor's Office for
his signature.
This process may take months and hence
many architects informally agree to begin their design
work with little more than an informal agreement with the
Public Facilities Department director.
DESIGNING THE SCHOOL
The architect may take several weeks studying the
295
program document, the educational specifications and the
design requirements before even putting pencil to paper.
During this period he may meet with the Educational
Planning Center and attend several community meetings to
clarify priorities and specific details of the program.
While this is going on,
site acquisition is
proceeding so that by the time the design is complete the
city will have clear title to the site and be able to
begin construction.
The design process will take the
better part of a year but this is none too long to allow
the real estate specialists in the Public Facilities
Department and, where applicable, the Boston Redevelopment Authority to complete all the legal and financial
arrangements necessary.
Having grasped the complexities of the program, the
architect will make several informal submissions of design
schemes for review by the community and by the architectural
section of the Public Facilities Department.
Based upon
296
the response to these submissions he will prepare a
formal set of schematic drawings of how the school is to
be designed.
These drawings will be submitted to the
Upod
Public Facilities Commission for formal anproval.
receipt of the submission of preliminary drawings, the
Public Facilities Department transmits the drawings to
the Superintendent of Schools for his comments.
The
law requires that the Superintendent be given fourteen
days to review the preliminary drawings.
His comments are
noted and, if agreeable, the Public Facilities Commission
approves the preliminaries and the architect may receive
his first payment under the terms of his contract.
While this has been going on the architect has been
requested to submit the names of several engineering firms
which he feels he can comfortably work with to do the
,
structural, mechanical, electrical and soils engineering
required to produce the school building.
The engineering
branch of the Public Facilities Department reviews the
qualifications of these proposed engineers and based upon
its recommendation the Commission votes to award contracts
297
to the appropriate firms.
With the approval of preliminaries in hand, the
architect proceeds with design development.
In this pqase
of the project he begins to consider some of the pragmatic details of how the school is to be constructed.
He
and his engineers meet constantly with the design and
engineering staff of the Public Facilities Department.
Designs are submitted to the Massachusetts Department of
Public Safety for their informal review as to conformance
to state safety and handicapped code requirements.
Submissions are made to the School Building Assistance
Bureau to make sure that the ultimate design will be
approved by that agency.
During this period, the community groups often
feel frustrated and uninvolved.
Their input having been
completed, there is nothing for them to do while this
technical process is going on.
Until the design is
brought before them for final review as to conformance
to their previously defined requirements, little that
298
is visible will happen on the site with the exception
of some clearance and borings.
t
Some of the more militant communities take this
period to accuse the city of "making decisions without
them."
It is unclear exactly how the community can
participate in the specification of structural systems
and air conditioning equipment but the drive for involvement is there nonetheless.
To offset this isolation
to some extent, the Educational Planning Center continues
to meet with the community to discuss operational
programs which will move into the new school upon its
completion.
There are still many loose ends which can
be cleared up concerning the specifics of cooperative
community programs such as recreation, youth activities,
participation of museums,
zoos and other educational and
cultural organizations in the new facility and other
operational details which the community is best at
organizing for itself.
The process for approvals of the design development
299
drawings or basics as they are also known is similar to
that used for approval of preliminaries.
Following
acceptance by the Public Facilities Commission, the
architect then proceeds to the preparation of working
I
drawings, specifications and contract documents.
The working drawings are the actual plans which the
contractor will follow in the construction of the school
building.
These drawings show every detail of how the
building goes together.
Each feature is carefully
described and dimensioned from the building structure to
the smallest cabinet latch.
Along with the workinp
drawings a specification book is prepared, describing
in somewhat formal and unambiguous language what materials
are to be used, how they are to be installed and how well
they are to be guaranteed to perform.
Contract documents describing the specific scope
of work which the general, contractor and sub-contractors
are to perform are prepared and reviewed by the engineers,
architects and contract lawyers.
These documents, the
300
working drawings and the specifications are then reproduced into many copies and the job is advertised for
public bid.
Contractors may come to the Public Facilities
Department engineering office and, for the payment of a
small deposit, may obtain a set of these documents and
drawings for their use in the preparation of bids.
a fixed period of time,
usually about one month,
After
the
bidding period ends and the sealed bids are opened.
The
law requires that the construction contract be awarded
to the low bidder unless it can be shown that the low
bidder is incapable of fulfilling the obligations required
by the contract.
A contract is prepared and the usual procedures of
passing through the Finance Commission, Auditor, Law
Department and Mayor are again followed.
Under the
Massachusetts File Sub-Bid Law, each sub-contract for such
things as heating and ventilating, mechanical work,
plumbing, electrical, acoustical ceilings, et cetera must
be bid separately.
The general contractor is obligated
by law to work with the low bidding sub-contractors even
301
though his firm may feel more comfortable working with
a sub-contractor of its own choosing.
Each sub-contract
moves through the bureaucratic mill according to the
usual form.
The architect is paid to supervise the construction
of the school and to assure that the contractor does not
depart from the design and specifications.
If the
contractor fails to conform to his obligations, he has
already had to post bond with the city for the entire value
of the job and a portion of that bond could legally be
withheld pending his satisfactory completion of the work
required.
The statutory requirement of 100% bonding is
intended to protect the city from loss due to failure of
the contractor to satisfactorily complete the job.
Often
this bonding requirement prevents small minority contractors
from bidding on city work as their credit rating has yet
to be established enough to allow them to obtain bonding
from a bonding company.
302
ACCELERATING THE PROCESS
Sometimes in order to speed up the construction of
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a new school or other facility, the city will contract
for site preparation and foundation work while the upper
portions of the building are still being detailed.
This
process, known as "fast tracking" allows the total
construction time to be shortened and sometimes gains
advantages in allowing foundations to begin before the
onset of winter weather.
The Public Facilities Department is presently
developing a systems construction technique which will
allow the bulk buying of stock components to further
accelerate design and construction of new schools.
The
implementation of this system approach has required
certain legislative changes and involved working closely
with local contractors and building trades unions to
assure the implementation of this departure from traditional construction techniques.
303
During the construction period, the Public Faci 1ities
Department advertises bids and orders the furnishi ngs and
equipment for these new schools through the tradit ional
City Purchasing Department.
If planned properly, the
furniture, equipment and accessories should arrive at
the new school not too long after the completion of
construction.
The real art of this procedure is t0 git
everything to come to completion at the same time.
PREPARING TO OPERATE A SCHOOL
Having the Public Facilities Department give the keys
to a completed and furnished school building to the School
Department does not assure the operability of that school.
Much careful planning-within the School Department yoes
on prior to the opening of a new school.
It
is the responsibility of the School Department
to order books and consumable supplies to implement the
304
educational program which it has planned for the new
facility.
Similarly, special educational materials such
as films, science supplies, animals, art materials and so
forth must be on the scene the day school opens or not (
too long thereafter.
After its unfortunate experience with the early open
plan schools, the Boston Public School system adopted a
program of orientation and staff training for teachers
who are to be assigned to these new schools.
During the
summer preceding the opening of the new school, teachers
attend a series of workshops designed to acquaint them
with the possibilities and functions of the new school
plant.
As many of these teachers will be teaching outside
of the self-contained classroom for the first time, many
of these workshops become a type of sensitivity session
to help teachers better function as teams and overcome
their inhibitions about teaching in front of other teachers.
Personnel within the School Department plan for food
305
services in the new school cafeteria.
"The school-
lunch lady," as she is affectionately known in the system,
must prepare a comprehensive list of materials and supplies
which she must have on hand to operate the new kitchen.,
Specialized staff must be hired and in some cases trained
to operate the equipment.
Similarly, the Schoolhouse Custodian who is in charge
of al 1 custodial mai ntenance in the school system must
make sure staff and supplies are on hand for the school
openi ng.
During the last days
0
f construction he meets
with the contractor and sub-contracto r and the engineers
to understand what his staff must be trained to do to
monitor the operations of the complex mechanical systems
which keep a new school functioning.
The old days of
shoveling coal are gone, at least as far as the new schools
are concerned.
The custo dian must be acquainted with
what to do or who to call
to maintain the air conditioning,
closed circuit television system, ele ctricallv operated
moveable partititons and swimming poo 1 filtration system
to name but a few of the many devices included in the new
school buildings.
306
Demographic data must be updated to insure that
children are assigned to the new school and that enrollment
is coordinated with existing schools in adjacent districts.
The Educational Planning Center performs this function,
and at the same time continues its efforts in community
relations to have workable community programs ready to
go into the school soon after its opening.
The Parks and Recreation Department is hiring staff
for after school programs and in some neighborhoods the
Commission of Affairs for the Elderly is preparing to
operate a hot meals program at reduced cost to senior
citizens during the early evening hours.
The behind the scenes process is indeed complex and
it is impossible for any one agency let alone any single
community group to participate in every facet of the
process.
Nonetheless, citizen groups and concerned
individuals can find entry points to the nrocess if they
care to investigate and to express their interest.
307
Expressing interest, however, requires more than a simple
"what can I do to help?" in response to being told that
the wheels are grinding.
Such a broad offer of help will
usually evoke little from the established agencies who tare
most likely already overburdened with technical details.
Taking his cue from the country doctor attending the mother
in labor in the old movies, the administrator will
occasionally shout the bureaucratic equivalent of "Boil
lots of hot water!" and hope that the make-work will
maintain the interest of the community until their
participation can again be useful.
The ploy is usually
to be avoided as almost all community groups can detect
when their efforts are having no effect on the process.
More beneficial, and less frustrating,
is the
community's attempt at self-organization during this
period of bureaucratic machination.
In a somewhat similar
fashion, neighborhoods do well to mobilize support of
business and cultural institutions to suppl ement the services of the new school.
Although it is helpful to the
school for the community to approach the museum or zoo with
308
a request for involvement, it is ten times more helpful
if the community works intensively with the museum or zoo
to develop specifics of an operating program.
The best
of ideas do little good if there is not a full commitment
to action and a strategy for continuing involvement on
the part of the community-discovered or communitygenerated resource.
Thusfar, few community groups have been willing to
devote the unglamorous effort to developing such programs.
The problem is a very real one,
with Philadelphia's Parkway
High School being a good case in point.
In that instance,
paid school administrators worked closely with local
businesses to draw upon their resources in educating high
school students.
The program was an acclaimed success,
but after its first year of operation many businesses
have dropped out, neither willing nor able to make an
ongoing commitment without some permanent mechanism for
compensating them for their expenses.
Few community persons are professionals at fund
raising and generating commitments.
This may be one area
where the School Department or some other established
309
agency could lend technical expertise to work with the
community in doing its own housekeeping detail while the
bureaucracy is attending to its equivalent details.
Still,
I
if programming and planning are less glamorous and interesting
than site selection, then this sort of thing may not be
able to attract more than a few diehards from even th4
most motivated community.
EVALUATION
Following the opening of each new school facility,
an ongoing evaluation takes place.
No matter how compre-
hensive the planning and design proc ess may have been,
there are always details which are i n need of modificatio n
or correction.
It is impossible to predict every user ne ed
and sometimes needs are generated by the very existence
of the new facility.
Looking back on the Hastings Street School, the first
310
open-plan building in the system, it is easy to see
that many mistakes were made but much learning has
taken place.
It is hoped that in the future better
evaluation techniques will lead to constait improvement
and revision of the programming, planning and design
processes.
Better teacher training and more effective
use of furnishings to define space are two concepts
just beginning to become part of the process.
Certainly
more changes will be implemented as the process is
refined.
311
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APPENDIX D
CHAPTER 641 OF THE ACTS OF 1965
THE MASSACHUSETTS RACIAL BALANCE ACT
312
APPENDIX Dr
THE COMMONWEALTH "F MACSACUUCE TTq
Advance copy
1965
Acts and Resolves
KEVIN H. WHITE, Secretary of the Commonwealth
Chap. 641
An Act providing for the elimination of racial
imbalance in the public schools.
Whereas, The deferred operation of this act would tend to
defeat its purpose, which is to eliminate forthwith racial
imbalance in the public schools, therefore it is hereby
declared to be an emergency law, necessary for the
immediate preservation of the public convenience.
Be it enacted, etc., as follows:
SECTION 1. Chapter 71 of the General Laws is hereby
amended by inserting after section 37B the following two
sections: -
SECTION 37C. It is hereby declared to be the policy
of the Commonwealth to encourage all school committees
to adopt as educational objectives the promo tion of racial
balance and the correction of existing racia 1 imbalance
in the public schools.
The prevention or el imination of
racial imbalance shall be an objective in al1 decisions
involving the drawing or altering of school attendance
lines and the selection of new school sites.
SECTION 37D. The school committee of each city, town,
and district shall, annually, at such time and in such
form as the commissioner shall determine, submit statistics
sufficient to enable a determination to be made of the nonwhite pupils in all public schools and in each school
under the jurisdiction oach such committee. Whenever the
state board of education finds that racial i mbalance exists
in a public school it shall notify in writin g the school
313
committee or regional school district committee having
jurisdiction over such school that such finding has been
made. The school committee shall thereupon prepare a plan
to eliminate such racial imbalance and file a copy of
such plan with the board. The term "racial imbalance"
refers to a ration between non-whte and other students in
public schools which is sharply out of balancp with thq
racial composition of the society in which non-white
children study, serve and work. For the purpose of this
section, racial imbalance shall be deemed to exist when
the per cent of non-white students in any public school is
in excess of fifty per cent of the total number of students
in such school.
Said plan shall detail the changes in existing school
attendance districts, the location of proposed school
sites, the proposed additions to existing school buildings,
and other methods for the elimination of racial imbalance.
Said plan shall also include projections of the expected
racial composition of all public schools. Any plan to
detail changes in existing school attendance districts,
the locations of proposed new school sites and proposed
additions to existing school sites and proposed additions
to existing school buildings with the intention of reducing
or eliminating racial imbalance must take into consideration
on an equal basis with the above mentioned intention, the
safety of the children involved in travelling from home
to school and school to home. Said plan may provide for
voluntary co-operation by other cities and towns in
rendering assistance and in making available facilities
to effectuate said plan.
No school committee or regional school district
committee shall be required as part of its plan to transport any pupil to any school outside its jurisdiction
or to any school outside the school district testablished
for his neighborhood, if the parent or guardian of such
pupil files written objection thereto with such school
committee.
Said board may, from time to time, require each
school committee to submit to said board a report on the
314
progress of the plan and its implementation.
The supreme judicial and the superior court sha
have jurisdiction in equi ty upon petition of the boa
education to enforce the provisions of this section.
SECTION 2. Chapter 15 of the General Laws is
hereby amended by inserti ng after Section 1H the fol lowing
three sections: -
SECTION 11. The board of educati on shall provide
technical and othe r assistance in the formulation and
execution of plans to eliminate racial imbalance, made
pursuant to secti o n thirty-seven D of chapter seventyone. Whenev er the boa rd determines that a school
committee or regional school district committee has
failed to fi le a plan in compliance with the nrovisions
of said section, it shall consult with and make specific
recommendations for a plan by such school committee or
regional school district committee.
If, following the receipt of notification from the
board of education that racial imbalance, as defined in
section thirty-seven D of chapter seventy-one exists, a
school committee or regional school district committee
does not show progress within a reasonable time in
eliminating racial imbalance in its schools the commissioner
of education shall not certify the amount of state aid
for such city or town or for such towns which are members
of such regional school districts, as required by section
nine of chapter seventy, and the school building assistance
commission upon receipt of notice from said board that
racial imbalance exists shall not approve any project for
school construction for such city, town or regional
school district under chapter six hundred and forty-five
of the acts of nineteen hundred and forty-eight, as amended,
and the commissioner of education may notify the commissioner
of corporations and taxation and the comptroller to hold
such funds as have been so certified under said section
The commissioner of
nine but have not been disbursed.
education may thereafter upon receipt of a plan acceptable
to the board of education notify the commissioner of
corporations and taxation and the comptroller to pav' any
such withheld funds to such city or town in such amounts
315
and at such times as he may designate, and the school
building assistance commission upon receipt of notice
from said board that a plan acceptable to it has been
received may approve such projects.
The school building assistance commission shall,
notwithstanding any contrary provision of chapter six
hundred and forty-five of the acts of nineteen hundred
and forty-eight, as amended, increase the amount of
grants for schoolhouse construction to sixty-five per
cent of the appro ved cost, whenever the board of educati on is satisfied that the construct ion or enlargement
of a schoolhouse is for the purpose of reducing or
eliminating racia 1 imbalanc:e in the school system and
so notifies the s chool buil ding assi stance commission.
SECTION lJ. Within th iirty days after (1) a
school commi ttee or regionaLl school district committee
declines to accept the recommendations submitted to it
by the board or (2) the board disapproves a revised plan
submitted to it by a school committee or regional school
district committee, said committee may file a petition
for judicial review in the superior court for the county
in which it is located or in the supreme judicial court
The court may affirm the board's
for Suffolk county.
recommendations submitted by it or
the
of
determination
disapproval of a revised plan
of
its determination
submitted to it, and order compliance with the recommendations of the board by appropriate decree, or if it
finds and rules that the determination by the board is
(a) in excess of the statutory authority or jurisdiction
of the board, or (b) based upon an error of law, or (c)
arbitrary or capricious, an abuse of discretion, or other
wise not in accordance with law, then it may set aside su ch
determination by the board and remand the matter to it fo r
further action.
The supreme judicial and the superior court shall have
jurisdiction in equity upon petition of the board of
education to order funds withheld as provided in section
one for such period of time as the court may determine.
SECTION 1K. The board of education, with the advice
316
of the commissioner, shall appoint an advisory committee
on racial imbalance and no individual shall be appointed
to this advisory committee on racial imbalance who has
been listed in any state or federal document as being
a member of a communist front organization. The members
of the committee shall serve without compensation except
that they may be reimbursed for the necessary expenses t
actually incurred in the performance of their duties.
Approved August 18,
1965
317
APPENDIX B
Mar ch 13,
From:
Deputy Commissioner Thomas J. Curtin
To:
Commissioner and Board of Education
1967
BOSTON RACIAL BALANCING PLAN - FEBRUARY, 1967
SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION PROGRAM
(Supplement to Task Force Report)
1.
Measures to be applied in evaluating effect of a
school construction plan to eliminate racial imbalance.
Qualification:
Chapter 641, Acts of 1965,
requires that the school building assistance
commission (since abolished and placed under the
Board of Education) shall not approve any school
construction projects until the commissioner
of education has notified said commission that
an acceptable plan to eliminate racial imbalance
has been received from a school committeepreviou sly
not in compliance with this statute. Accordingl yn
Boston and other communities have been including
in their plans vitally needed school constructio n
projects not markedly affecting racial imbalance ,
as well as those which do. Approval of a total
plan is based upon reaching an agreement that an
equitable share of construction monies will be
reserved for those schools which will eliminate
racial imbalance.
A.
Basic Principles
1.
The degree
contribute
which the proposals seriously
the reduction and elimination
318
of racial imbalance in terms of
number of children moved out of
schools and the extent to which
of presently imbalanced schools
lessened.
the
imbalanced
the number
will be
2.
Provision for safety of the children involved.
3.
Provision for other stages of school construction if total design cannot reasonably
be expected at this time.
4.
Integrated education beginning with primary
grades.
B.
Subsidiary Principles
1. The school projection indicates opening with
less than fifty percent non-white pupils.
N.B.
2.
Provision for extenuatin g circums tances
as case of Humboldt Aven ue School where
commitment to recruit wh ite pupil s is
expected.
The school has a sufficiently arge enrollment to forestall future racia
imbalance,
i.e., carries out the "larger eighborhood
school" concept of 800 or more pupils.
3. The attendance district related to the school
is flexible; i.e., laid out in such a way as
to avoid or forestall future racial imbalance.
4.
The construction of the school permits other
combinations of districts which would bring
about the elimination of racial imbalance.
5.
The construction project is a necessary link
3/19
in a series of moves to bring about the
elimination of racial imbalance at another
location, such as drawing off non-white
pupils from imbalanced schools or attracting
white pupils to a potentially imbalanced
school
C.
6.
The utilization of relocatable units precedent
to new construction.
7.
The utilization of a voluntary transfer
system from closed schools precedent to new
construction.
Provision of Adequate Supportive Data
1.
Demographic projections of expected school
population and racial composition thereof.
2.
Capacity of the school.
3.
Timing of the proposed construction.
4.
Class size and pupil-teacher ration.
5.
Grade levels.
6.
Map of individual school attendance lines
and related descriptive statement.
N.B.
Not to be confused with Boston's School
District Map encompassing two or more
schools per administrative distri ct.
7.
Approximate site location.
8.
Distances to school.
320
APPENDIX E
CHAPTER 642 OF THE ACTS OF 1966
AN ACT ESTABLISHING THE PUBLIC FACILITIES
COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF BOSTON
321
APPENDIX E:
ACTS,1966.--CHAPS. 641,642.
t
CHAP.641.
An Act Increasing the Salary of the Commissioner
of Veterans'
Services.
Be it enacted, etc. as follows:
The first sentence of section 22 of Chapter 6 of
the General Laws is hereby amended by striking out, in
line 4, as appearing in section 1.of chapter 801 of
the acts of 1963, the work "twelve" and inserting in
place thereof the word:-fourteen.
Approved September 3, 1966
CHAP. 642.
Be it
An Act Establishing in the City of Boston A
Public Facilities Department, abolishing the
Department of School Buildings and transferring
its functions in part to said Public Facilities
Department and in part to the School Committee
of said city for the more efficient and
economical construction and alteration of
municipal buildings.
enacted,
etc.,
as follows:
SECTION 1. There shall be in the city of Boston,
hereinafter called the city, a department, known as the
public facilities department, hereinafter called the
department, which shall be under the charge of a board, known
as public facilities commission, hereinafter sometimes
called the commission, consisting of three members,
known as public facilities commissioners, each appointed
by the mayor for a term expiring on the first Monday of
the January following the next biennial municipal election
at which a mayor is elected. The mayor may remove any
322
public facilities commissioner at any time by filing a
written statement to such effect with the city clerk.
The commission shall elect one of its members as
chairman and another as vice-chairman and shall also
appoint a secretary who need not be a member of the
commission. The members of the commission shall serve
without compensation and shall be deemed to be special '
municipal employees for the purposes of chapter two
hundred and sixty-eight A of the General Laws. No person
shall serve as a member of the commission while holding
the offic e of mayor, city councillor or school committeeman, but a member may simultaneously hold any other office
or positi on under the city government or any office or
posi ti on under the state or federal government.
The commission shall meet at least once each three
months. All words in this act purporting to give authority
to, or to direct an act by, the commission shall be
construed as giving such authority or direc tion to a
majority f the commission acting eit her in meeti ng or
by a writ ng signed by such majority and filed with the
secretary of the commission.
SECT ON 2. There shall be in the department an
officer, .nown as the director of pub lic facilities,
hereinafter called the director, appo inted by the
commission to serve at its pleasure, and such other personnel
including accountants, architects, engi neers, construction,
financial and other experts, managers and superintendents,
as the commission may from time to time deem expedient;
provided, however, that no person sha 11 be elected or
appointed by the commission to any office or position,
other than those of chairman, vice-ch airman and director,
unless such person is nominated for such election or
appointment by the director. Without obtaining the consent
of any other board or officer or furt her authority than that
contained in this act, the commission may fix the
compensation of the director and, upo n recommendation of
the director but not otherwise, of al l other personnel
elected or appointed by it. Neither chapter thirty-one
of the General Laws nor any rule made thereunder shall
323
apply to the director or any o ther personnel elected or
appointed by the commission; provided, however, that said
chapter thirty-one and rules m ade thereunder shall continue
to apply to every person trans ferred to the service of the
commission if at the time of s uch transfer such person
holds an office or position un der a permanent civil
service appointment and is not still serving his probationary period; and further provid ed that said chapter and
rules shall govern promotions among those to whom they
continue to apply.
The director shall be the executive officer of the
commission and shall have such powers and perform such
duties as the commission shall from time to time determine.
The commission may delegate to, and recall from, the
director, whenever the commission deems it expedient,
the power to make contracts and any or all of its other
powers, as the commission may from time to time determine.
SECTION 3. It shall be the duty of the commission,
and the commission shall have the exlusive power and
authority:
(a) To prepare and from time to time amend a longrange capital improvement program designed to provide the
necessary structures, facilities and equipment when
needed or as soon thereafter as the conditions and
adaptability of buildings then existing, the expected
availability of buildings then being constructed and the
financial resources of the city will permit. Such program
shall specify the capital improvement projects to be
undertaken in the ten years immediately following the
year in which such program is prepared, the estimated cost
of each such project, the proposed commencement and
completion dates thereof, and, to the extent practicable,
the proposed or alternative sites therefor. Such program
shall include not only all proposed alteration, rehabilitation, modernization, change in use or demolition of
structures and facilities from time to tiem existing.
(b) Subject to the limitations in section four of
this act, to select the site-for each new structure and
facility and each extension of structures and facilities
324
from time to time exisi;ing.
(c) Subject to the limitations in section four of
this act, to prepare such plans and specifications as may
be necessary or advisable to construct new structures
and facilities from time to time existing, and, except as
otherwise provided in section eight, to make major
alterations and major repairs of such structures and
facilities.
(d) Subject to the provisions of sections fortyfour A to forty-four L, inclusive, of chapter one hundred
and forty-nine of the General Laws, to construct new
structures and facilities and to reconstruct, remodel
and demolish structures and facilities from time to time
existing.
(e) To make major alt erations and major repairs of
all structures and facil it ies from time to time belonging
to the city, other than sc hool bui ldings and their yards.
As used in this clause and clause (c) "major alterations"
and "major repairs " shall mean res pectively alterations
and repairs the estimated cost of which would require
compliance with sections f orty-four A to forty-four L,
inclusive, of chap ter one hundred and forty-nine of the
General Laws; and "al terat io ns" as used in this section
and in section eig ht means work whi ch does not involve
the whole of the structure 0 r facil ity affected or involve
a change in its use and whic h is no t in connection with
the construction of a new structure or facility or of
an addition to a structure 0 r facil ity from time to
time existing or in connec ti on with other reconstruction
or remodeling of structures or faci lities from time to
time existing.
(f) To plan, lay out, relocate, widen, alter or
discontinue, in the manner provided therefor by law,
any public way or alley or any public sewer and to provide
for the planting or removal of public shade trees in
connection therewith whenever such way, alley or sewer is
within the limits of a project of the commission.
The commission shall also have power and authority:
(i) To accept grants, gifts and other aid from the
federal government or any agency thereof, the commonwealth
325
or any authority or agency thereof, or any charitable
foundation, private corporation or individual and,
notwithstanding the provisions of section fifty-three
of chapter forty-four of the General Laws, to expend
the same without appropriation.
(ii) To delegate any of its powers or functions t6
any other department or officer, board, commission or
authority of the city or to any other public body politic
and corporate incurring expenses which the city appropriates money to defray. Each such officer, department,
board, commission, authority and public body is hereby
authorized and directed to accept such delegation and
exercise the power and perform the function so
delegated.
(iii) To contract with a compa ny or companies
authorize d to do such business in t he conmmonwealth for
the issua nce of a policy or pol icie s insuring the city
against ( a) legal liability for los s or damage on account
of person al injury or death or prop erty damage cau sed
by accide nt on or about any rea l'es tate which has or
(b) loss or damage to
shall hav e been let or leased;
real
estate, and legal lia bility for loss or
any such
damage on account of personal inj ury or death or
property damage, caused by the brea kage, explosion or
rupture of , or any accidental inj ury to, steam boi 1ers
and pipes and containers conn ected therewith, any
lighting, heating or cooking appara tus or their
connectio ns, fly-wheels, powe r whee ls, and engines or other
apparatus for applying or tra nsmi tt ing motive or e1ectri cal
power, tanks or other receptacles under pressure, or their
connections, or madhinery of any kind on any such real
estate; and (c) loss or damage to glass on any such real
estate, including lettering and ornamentation t hereon, and
loss or damage caused by the bre akage of such glass.
(iv) To engage by contract from time to time such
architects, construction or fina ncial experts, accountants,
engineers, custodial or maintena nce firms, and other
independent contractors as may be necessary or convenient
3?6
and recommended by the director.
(v) To make and execute all contracts and instruments
and do any and all other things necessary or convenient
for the exercise and fulfillment of the commission's
powers, duties and responsibilities pursuant to this act.
(vi) To continually investigate and study, and from
time to time report in writing to the mayor on, the
t
services the city should provide and the manner in which
its functions can best be performed in all areas of
existing or potential municipal endeavor and the structures,
facilities and equipment necessary therefor.
SECTION 4. (A) No site shall be selected by the
commission for any new structure or facility or for the
extension of any structure or facility from time to time
existing unless the director shall have recommended such
site to the commission; and no architect, engineer or
other expert shall be engaged as an independent contractor
by the commission in connection with the construction,
reconstruction, alteration, remodeling, or demolition
of any structure or facility unless the director shall
have recommended such architect, engineer or other expert
to the commission for such engagement.
(B) The director shall not recommend any site to the
commission for selection unless he has given every board,
officer, authority or body to use the same in the first
instance written notice of his proposed recommendation
nor until each such board, officer, authority or body
has filed with him written comments thereon-or fourteen
days, or such longer period as the director in his said
notice may specify, have elapsed after the director's
delivering said notice without his receiving such
comments.
(C) The commission shall not approve the preliminary
studies of any architect or engineer for any structure or
facility, unless a statement of functional requirements
respecting such structure or facility and such studies
shall be submitted by the director to every board,
officer, authority or body to use such structure or
facility in the first instance nor until each such board,
327
officer authority or body has filed with the director
written comments with respect thereto or fourteen days
or such longer period as the director in his said submission may specify, have elapsed after the director's
delivering such submission without his receiving such
comments.
(D) Whenever the superintendent of schools in respbnse
to a notice of proposed site or a submission of architectural or engineering studies and statement of functional
requirements with respect to a school building delivered
by the director, as provided in this section four,
disapproves such site or the plans for such school
building and files within the period of time specified
in such notice or submission a counterproposal of such
plans, without further notice or submission the director
may recommend and the commission may select the site
specified in such counterproposal or approve the plans
after modification in accordance with such changes; and
if the commission rejects a site or changes of plans
specified in such a counterproposal, the director shall
submit to the commissioner of education copies of such
counterproposal and all accompanying statements of the
superintendent of schools together with the notice or
submission delivered by the director and statements of
the director in support thereof. Within thirty days
after a submission to the commissioner of education pursuant
to the preceding sentence, the commissioner of education
shall notify the director of his selection of the site
or plans as proposed by the director or as specified in
such counterproposal; and such selection by the commissioner
of education shall be binding upon the director and
commission.
(E) The construction, reconstruction, alteration,
remodeling, and demolition by the commission of structures
and facilities shall be subject to the provisions of
chapter one hundred and forty-three of the General Laws
relative to the safety of persons in buildings, but shall
not be subject to any other building, fire, garage, health
or zoning law or any building, fire, garage, health or
328
zoning ordinance, rule or regulation applicable in the
city of Boston.
(F) In entering into contracts on behalf of the city,
the commission shall be subject to the provisions,
so far as apt, of section six of chapter four hundred
and eighteen of the acts of eighteen hundred and ninetX.
SECTION 5. Every board and officer of the city,
including the school committee, and every authority and
public body politic and corporate incurring expenses
which the city appropriates money to defray, may, and
at the request of the commission shall, conduct
theoretical or action research designed to define improvements in the services offered or provided, and the
functions performed, by such board, officer, authority
or body; and the school committee may prepare and from
time to time amend or supplement a report of educational
specifications and programs for the guidance of the
commission. The results of all such research and such
report of the school committee and any amendment or
supplement thereto shall be submitted to the commission,
and may also be made available to, and information
respecting the same may be disseminated to, appropriate
agencies of the city, state and federal governments.
SECTION 6. Not later than the first Monday in
February of each year, the mayor shall submit to the city
council an annual loan order making such appropriations
as may be met by loans and, when added to the appropriations
in the annual budget, will enable the undertaking in such
year of the capital improvements specified in the approved
capital improvement program to be undertaken in such year,
and thereafter may submit such supplementary loan orders
for such purposes as he may deem necessary.
SECTION 7. The city, by a two thirds vote, as
defined in section one of chapter forty-four of the
General Laws, may borrow from time to tiiie sums not
exceeding, in the aggregate, one hundred fifteen million
dollars for the purpose of planning, designing, acquiring
land for, constructing and originally equipping structures
and facilities it is authorized to construct, and may issue
bonds or notes therefor, which shall bear on their face
329
the words, City of Boston, Capital Improvements Loan,
Act of 1966. Each issue shall cons ti tute a separate
loan; and such loans shall be paid in not more than
thirty years from their dates. Debt incurred from time
to time under this act shall not be i ncluded in
determining the limit of indebtedness of the city as
established by law, but shall, except as herein providd d,
be subject to the provisions, applica ble to the city,
of chapter forty-four of the General Laws, exclusive
of the limitation contained in the first paragraph of
section seven thereof, but including the provisions of
section seventeen thereof relative to temporary loans
in anticipation of the issue of bonds or notes.
SECTION 8.It shall be the duty of the school
committee of the city, and the school committee shall
have the exclusive power and authorit y to perform
necessary alterations, as defined in section three,
maintenance and repairs of public sch ool buildings and
their yards and furnishings.
SECTION 9. Section 1 A of chapter 231 of the acts of
1906, as appearing in section 1 of chapter 208 of the acts
of 1965, is hereby amended by inserting after the second
paragraph the following paragraph:-Subject to the provisions of the last paragraph of
section one, the school committee shall also elect a
chief structural engineer, a senior structural engineer,
and not more than three structural engineers, who shall
severally hold office until removed by the school
committee. The chief structural engineer shall constitute
the awarding authority within the meaning of sections
forty-four A to forty-four L, inclusive, of chapter one
hundred and forty-nine of the General Laws with respect
to contracts for the alteration or repair of public
school buildings. At such times as the chief structural
engineer is absent or unable from any cause to perform
his duties or as there is a.vacancy in the office of chief
structural engineer, the senior structural engineer,
or in case of his absence or disability or of a vacancy
330
in such office such structural engineer as the school
committee shall from time to time designate, shall act
as chief structural engineer.
SECTION 10. Section 3 of chapter 486 of the acts of
1909, as most recently amended by section 1 of chapter 604
of the acts of 1941, is hereby further amended by inserting
after the third sentence the following sentence:--The crity
council shall take definite action on any supplementary
appropriation order for the public facilities department
by adopting, reducing or rejecting it within sixty days
after it is filed with the city clerk; and in the event
of their failure so to do, such supplementary appropriation order as submitted by the mayor shall be in effect
as if formally adopted by the city council and approved
by the mayor.
SECTION ll.Section 14 of said chapter 486 is hereby
amended by st riking out the last sentence and inserting in
place thereof the following sentence:--The provis ions of
this section shall not apply to the school commit tee,
the public facilities commis sion, or any official by law
appointed by the governor.
SECTION 12. Said chapte r 486 is hereby amended by
striking out section 31 and inserting in place thereof
the following sections:-Without obtaining the consent of any
Secti on 31.
further authority than that
other board or off icer
public faci 1ities commission,
contained in this act,
ay acqu i re by purc hase, lease,
in the name of the cit
gift, devise or otherwise for any mun icipal purpose a
fee simple absolute or any lesser intere st i n any land,
public or private, within the limi ts of the city,
including air rights and riparian rights , and may take
by eminent domain under chapter se venty- nine or chapter
eighty A of the General Laws any such fee or interest
except in parks and playgrounds and except a lso, unless
there be express consent, in lands belonging to or
covered by contract with the Unite d States, the commonwealth, the Boston Housing Authori ty or tue Boston
Whenever the price proposed
Redevelopment Authority.
331
be paid for any land to be acquired for any municipal
purpose is more than twenty-five per cent higier than
its average assessed valuation during the previous three
years, such land shall not be acquired by purchase, but
shall be taken by eminent domain. No land shall be taken
until an appropriation by loan or otherwise for the
general purpose for which land is needed shall have beep
made by the mayor and city council by a two thirds vote
of all its members; nor shall a price be paid in excess
of the appropriation, unless a larger sum is awarded by
a court of competent jurisdiction. Nothing in this
section shall affect in any way the powers and duties of
the real property board under chapter four hundred and
seventy-four of the acts of nineteen hundred and forty-six
as now or hereafter amended, or of the public improvement
commission as successor in function to the board of
street commissioners under chapter four hundred and
thirty-seven of the acts of eighteen hundred and ninetythree or chapter four hundred and twenty-six of the acts
of eighteen hundred and ninety-seven or chapter three
hundred and ninety-three of the acts of nineteen hundred
and six, as severally now or hereafter amended, or acts
in addition thereto.
Section 31 A. Without obtaining the consent of
any board or officer other than the mayor, and without
interdepartmental payment, the public facilities commission, without further authority, may transfer ary
land now or hereafter belonging to the city, except
parks and playgrounds, but including school lands and
land acquired by foreclosure of tax title, from the
municipal purpose, if any, to which it is devoted at
the time of such transfer to any other specific municipal
purpose, and may also transfer the care, custody, management and control of any such land, except parks and
playgrounds, but including school land and land acquired
by foreclosure of tax title, from such board or officer,
including itself, as at the time of such transfer may
have the same to such other board or officer, including
itself, as it may determine.
Section 31 B. Without obtaining the consent of any
board or officer other than the mayor, the public
facilities commission, without further authority, may,
for such rent or price and upon such terms as said
332
commission may deem appropriate, lease or sublease or
sell, grant, and convey any surplus land, as hereinafter
defined, to the federal government or any agency thereof,
the commonwealth or an political sub-division or
authority thereof or, if notice of intent to lease or sell
such land or buildings together with a statement of when
and where written details of such proposed lease or sale
may be examined shall first have been publicly advertised
in the City Record once a week for two successive weeks,
to any person, firm, corporation or trust. "Surplus
land" as used in this section, shall be deemed to mean
land, buildings and real estate now or hereafter belonging
to the city and in the care, custody, management and
control of said commission (except parks and playgrounds)
which at the time of such lease or sale are or have been
used for school purposes, or which have been acquired by
foreclosure of tax titles or acquired under section
eighty of chapter sixty of the General Laws, or which
irrespective of the manner or time of acquisition, are
not held by the city for a specific purpose, or which
have been transferred to the commission by the city
counci1.
Section 2 of chapter 224 of the acts of
SECTION 13.
as
by striking out cl ause (a)
amended
1936 is here by
of
1949.
the
acts
117
of
chapter
of
1
appearing in section
he
acts
452
of
t
c
of
hapter
17E
Section
SECTION 14.
of 1948 as a ppearing in section 1 of chap ter 376 of the
acts of 1951 is hereby amended by stri king out, in lines
3 and 4, the words "other than for school purpose S"
by striking out, in lines 17 and 18, the words "other than
for school purposes", and also by striking out in line 26,
the words "the amount of land to be sold or".
Notwithstanding the provisions of the
SECTION 14A.
third paragr aph of section one A of chapter two hundred
and thirty-o ne of the acts of nine teen hndred and six, as
appearing in section nine of this act. the incumbents of
the position of chief structural engineer and of the
position of s enior structural engineer in the schooI
department of the city of Boston when thi s act takes
effect shall , without nomination or appoi ntment, become
333
respectively the chief structural engineer and the
senior structural engineer provid ed for by said third
paragraph, and the civil service law and r ules shall
continue to apply to such incumbe nts, but not to 'their
successors in office; and the deputy superintendents in
the department of school buildings of said city when this
act takes effect shall, without nomination or appointment,
become the structural engineers provided for by said third
paragraph, and they, but not their successors in office,
shall hold office subject to sections forty-three and
forty-five of chapter thirty-one of the General Laws.
Neither the chief structural engineer, the senior
structural engineer or any such deputy superintendent
shall suffer any reduction in compensation or any
impairment of his retirement, vacation or sick leave
rights by reason of the passage of this act.
SECTION 15. The board of commissioners of school
buildings of the city, the department of school buildings
of the city, and the offices of the superintendent of
construction, and of the deputy superintendents, in said
department are hereby abolished. All property in the care
and custody of said department is hereby transferred to
the care and custody of the school department of the
city. Section six of chapter two hundred and forty-one
of the acts of eighteen hundred and seventy-five, as
amended, chapter four hundred and seventy-three of the acts
of nineteen hundred and one, as amended, and chapter three
hundred and fi fty-one of the acts of nineteen hundred and
twenty-nine, as amended, are hereby repealed.
Every person holding in said department of school
buildings on the effective date of this act an office o
position subject to the civil service law and rules sha
be transferred wi thout civil service examination or
registration to a similar off ice or position under the
school committee of the city without reduction in rank or
compensation or i mpairment of his civil service rights or
his retirement, s eniority, vacation or sick leave rights:
and his service shall be deemed to have been continuous to
the same extent as if the abolition of said department of
school buildings had not taken place. No person holding an
334
office or positon in said department of school buildings
on the effective date of this act shall suffer any
impairment of his retirement or pension rights by reason
of the abolition of said department of school buildings.
Approved September 3, 1966.
335
SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY
336
SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adinolfi, Anthony G. Its Time to Build: A Report on
Municipal Construction in Boston. Boston: Special
report to the Mayor of Boston, 1966.
Aleshire, Robert A. "Planning and Citizen Participation."
Urban Affairs Quarterly, V (June, 1970), 369-393.
Arden, Celeste B. "An Analysis of the Site Selection
Procedures for an Education Park." M.C.P. thesis,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1970.
Cronin, Joseph M. Organizing an Urban School System for
Diversity. Boston: Massachusetts Advisory Council on
Education, 1970.
deReuck, Anthoney and Julie Knight, editors. Conflict in
Society. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1966.
Judelson, David and John Macrae and Robert Yelton. Tenant
Cooperative Housing Rehabilitation. Boston: M.I.T.
Community Projects Laboratory, 1970.
Kahn, Robert L. and Elise Boulding, editors. Power and Conflict
in Organizations. New York: Basic Books, Incorporated, 1964.
Rogers, David.
1968.
110 Livingston Street.
New York: Random House,
Sargent, Cyril G. A Report on the Schools of Boston. Boston:
Boston Redevelopment Authority and Harvard University, 1962.
Schrag, Peter. Villiage School Downtown. Boston: Beacon Press,
1967.
Task Event Network for School Construction: The Boston Public
Schools Generic Model. New York, General Learning
Corporation, 1968.